Liar Liar
by ExasperatedOctopus
Summary: In which Loki finds a kindred spirit, is almost out-disfunctioned, and ends up saving the universe. Eventually. (AU)
1. Myth

DISCLAIMER: I own nothing you recognize. If you don't recognize it it may or may not be from that weird cavernous place my brain resides in.

* * *

So. He would like to state this was absolutely not his fault. He was just walking down a quaint little street, having an evening stroll, minding his own business, when all of a sudden he was almost flattened by a blue person falling from the sky.

Ok, so the street wasn't really _quaint_ , or really even a _street_ , and he might have been prowling for hapless muggers to terrorize, which may not have been the best hobby (what do you do, right?), but the random blue guy was totally not his fault at all. Even a little. Nope.

At least he didn't think so.

He quietly reviewed all illegitimate doings he had participated in in the last couple weeks, and concluded it was indeed _not his fault._ He should just walk away. Now.

Now.

Now now now.

Now was a funny word when you thought about it. It actually sounded a lot like the word 'no', which was also applicable to this situation.

But the guy was so pitiful, bleeding out on the concrete of the alleyway, looking like he was just dumped from the top of…something very tall. And possibly magical. And most definitely not his problem. And it was starting to snow. So why was he moving forwards to take Mystery Blue Man's (MBM! That would be his name.) pulse?

Oh dear.

He couldn't do it. Get involved, that is. Then he would get attached, and be sad when MBM inevitably left. But, stopping death isn't involvsion…involvilating…involving? Himself with MBM, right? Right!

Ow!

He looked at his stinging fingertips and drew on all of his meager Med School knowledge to conclude a.) MBM had a pulse and b.) he was very, very cold. Yet another sign from above to scoot.

Did he (He? Her? It?) have ice based abilities? Was he made of ice or liquid nitrogen or something of that caliber? Was he just freakishly cold? How was he going to move him? Wait…

He wasn't going to move him, he was going to walk away and call 911, where the MBM would be packed up by creepy governmental agents and locked in a secret facility where they would run horribly inhumane experiments and…yeah…MBM was coming with him. Somehow.

He ran his stinging fingertips through his hair in thought, where they promptly got stuck in the curls. Ow again. He kept forgetting only people with straight hair could do that. First he needed MBM's condition.

Carefully edging closer, he realized his previous assessment of MBM's danger of bleeding out was a bit dramatic. Blood, worryingly dark blood, was really only coming from a good sized gash in his forehead, and a couple of nicks from landing on the local décor (broken bottles, nails, possibly a couple of rats). He was afraid someone had gone at MBM with a razor or something, but on closer inspection with his handy dandy phone light, they were just scar…things. No danger there. Probably.

Next, bones. His left arm was most definitely broken, unless blue people had a random joint there. Which was unlikely. Yes.

That actually looked pretty tender. He made a sympathetic face MBM definitely would have appreciated if he wasn't in, you know, Lala Land. He estimated at least cracked ribs from the fall, and his ankle looked a bit screwed up as well.

Ok, plan of action.

He needed to set the bones before anything else, or he might sever something important, like a brachial artery. Unless MBM was like a frog and absorbed oxygen directly into his skin…he kind of looked like a frog. Better not risk it though. To do that he would need to touch the guy.

He couldn't physically touch MBM unless frostbite sounded pleasant, so coverings for his hands were a must. As well as possibly a sort of tong-apparatus.

Plastic trashcan lids? Not bendy enough. He would never be able to properly maneuver MBM's bones back into place.

What about something from in the trashcans?

Oh look, a stick! And lots of questionable rope. Goodie. A good sized board would work until he could get MBM home, where he could find…a cleaner good sized board. Sadly, there were no tongs or handy medical equipment stashed in the top of the cans, and he wasn't going any deeper.

Suddenly, he was hit by an idea so great it deserved a little celebratory dance, which was promptly carried out. After what looked like a sudden, vicious shiver fit of epic proportions he sprinted off to his apartment.

"Don't go anywhere!"

* * *

He came back, gasping for breath and victoriously carrying what had to be the ugliest oven mitts in the history of New York City (Flowers. Just flowers). They were from his big brother, and he was trying to find a way to accidentally burn them to ashes. Freezing them into nothingness would work too. It was a win-win situation.

MBM was now covered in a thick layer of frost. Oops. Maybe he should have covered him with something before he ran off. On the other hand, he was bundled up in a capey-jacket thing, so he was probably toasty enough.

He looked at the arm and winced. That was just nasty. And would really, really hurt. Lots. Wow. Was he even qualified to fix that? Of course he was. Three and a half years of Med School better have prepared him for this. Heck, his childhood had pretty much prepared him for this. But still.

Ow.

After a grounding breath, he carefully straightened out MBM, because there was no need to accidentally turn him into a pretzel, and _wow_ was he heavy. Must be the ridiculous leather getup.

On closer examination, it was actually some strange amalgamation of leather, armor, and chainmail, with a breastplate and a useful arrangement that went up and supported his neck a bit. It was like a built in neck brace!

The outfit was actually pretty handy. It was probably keeping ribs from jostling and stabbing his patient's internal organs. Always a plus, even if it probably added about thirty pounds to his overall weight.

Anyway, on to the actual medical issue.

He deftly slipped on the mitts, carefully took the issue-ridden arm above and below the break, and gingerly pulled the wayward bone back into place. Taking the debatably trustworthy board, he broke it into roughly two pieces (which was a warning in itself to the dubiousness of the board, he wasn't exactly muscular), and carefully braced the arm with the questionable objects he found in the trash.

Now for the fun part. How on Earth was he planning to lug MBM back to his apartment? The guy was a good foot taller than he could ever hope to be. And horribly injured. And freezing in both meanings of the term. And…he did not think this through at all. Hmm.

His eyes wandered aimlessly over the surrounding area, flicking here and there before finally landing on his salvation.

Trashcan lids…

He could make an incredibly stealthy sled out of a couple of lids and some more of his questionable rope (there was plenty of that), and make his way back to the apartment unnoticed without causing undue harm to MBM! They were flat, and the snow was piling up quite nicely, which would help the sliding along. He surprised himself sometimes.

* * *

Alright, the lids weren't quite as sneaky as he thought they'd be. They were actually very loud, especially after he managed to finagle a 200 (400? 600? Whatever.) some-odd pound blue person onto them, dragged them over the asphalt and broken glass for a good three blocks, and then tottered up to his apartment complex. He was so happy he had sprung for the crappy, rundown, non-grand staircase type of building. He may have shed a tear or two when the elevator came in sight.

Never again. Ever. That was the worst idea in the history of ideas that were horrible. What was he thinking? Now he was morally obligated to deal with this guy until he got better.

Drat.

He trudged into the rather lackluster body of his apartment, and looked around for a place to stash…put…place…nothing sounded good. It sounded like he had just abducted MBM off of the street if he said it like that. Drape? Whatever. Lids were not a good place for the injured.

The couch seemed acceptable. It was a bit small for MBM's frame, but it was better than the floor.

Now to lift his ridiculously heavy guest up onto the stupid thing. Great.

Needless to say, it was a monumental effort in contortion and upper body strength he really didn't possess. He kept having to stop to rest, which wasn't helpful in the least. There were a few moments of panic, and MBM may have hit his head once or twice (Only a bit!), but he ended up in the least crunched position that was really feasible on the tiny hand-me-down couch.

With his legs hanging slightly over one end of the couch and his torso propped up against the other end, MBM was not going to be happy when he woke up. He was going to have a nasty crick in his neck, and his arm wasn't really receiving the attention it needed, but prioritizing was the key. Triage and all that. Speaking of, he probably needed to check MBM's ribs out, but that would involve removing clothes.

Nope. He was going to pick his battles.

Then it was time for the first-aid kit to come out and make its rounds. A fun time if there ever was one, because everybody loves hydrogen peroxide.

He studiously prepared a wet washcloth, dunked a cotton ball into good old H2O2, cleaned out all the little cuts he could see, and then carefully began to check out the frankly nasty head wound MBM was sporting over his right eyebrow. The washcloth idea was a bit of a bust, as it froze on contact with any bit of his guest, but the cotton ball seemed to be doing its job. The hydrogen peroxide was fizzing away quite cheerfully before it struck him that he might have actually just poisoned MBM.

He stared warily at the areas of contact for a while, checking for signs of melting, agony, poisoning, or any sort of adverse reaction. Like hives. Or acne. Could this guy get acne?

While pondering such important questions, he admittedly wasn't paying as much attention to MBM as he should have, and missed when one of his eyelids slid open, revealing a red eye and downright murderous intent.

He started to notice when a ridged blue hand shot out, grabbed his wrist in a crushing grip, and yanked him forwards in an incredibly violent and unnecessary manner. This was not a good sign.

He may have yelped, but he wasn't going to admit to anything.

Fighting the urge to yank backwards out of the frostbitten and freakishly solid grip ( because trying to escape just made people hold on harder and break his wrist accidentally-on-purpose), he relaxed and watched with detached interest as frost spread down his arm.

Ow, but oddly pretty. Maybe he could enter his corpse into an art show or something. It would pay for his funeral at least. And the frost made him match his oven mitts! And the couch, and the wallpaper, and…Wow. His apartment was apparently very flower oriented.

Busy examining his frankly disturbing internal decoration discovery, he once again lost track of the scary, possibly alien personage latched onto his arm. Which was a shame because it seemed like he had said something and was glaring expectantly at him. Oh dear.

Time for fallback answers!

"No. Yes. New York. Um…I'm Janie," He put on his brightest smile. Had he answered it?

According to the unimpressed look MBM was giving him, Janie's patented all-purpose answers had failed. But his pupils seemed to be the same size, and he had dropped Janie's hand. Both were very good things.

Without any more input from MBM, he hazarded another guess at the question, "You've got a broken arm, a couple of cuts, and probably a concussion, but that's all. I think."

Lie. His ankle was screwed up, and his ribs had probably seen better days. Oh well, it was mostly truthful, and he wasn't really sure what was wrong with the ankle anyway.

MBM had slipped into unconsciousness while Janie had been contemplating his deception. It was a very small deception after all. Nothing really to write home about.

He then realized he would have to wake MBM up in two hours to check for brain damage and such. Dang. That would not be fun.

Janie stood and brushed himself off, holding his right wrist out for inspection. It looked like he had been grabbed by an angry freezer coil, but the rest of his arm was thawing out quite nicely. He would need to soak it though. Hot water, here he comes!

As he entered the kitchen, Janie glanced through the window and realized 'snowing' didn't quite cover what was happening anymore. Perhaps 'blizzarding' or 'armageddoning' would be more appropriate. Was armageddoning even a word? He thought so, but verbing had never been his forte.

Anyway.

There was no space between the flakes to see more than the sad little flickering of the streetlight outside his window, and it was freezing. More so than MBM back on the couch. It made his face hurt to stand too close to the window and that was not a good sign. Again.

Tonight just wasn't his night.

He scowled and stumped into his bedroom, grabbed one of his fluffiest, warmest quilts (It was not flowery, thank you very much!), and wow did that make his wrist hurt. Hissing in pain and irritation, he dragged the darned thing back to MBM and started to drape it over him.

Wait. Something was different here. What was it?

Oh. MBM was no longer blue. He had thawed into a frankly unhealthy looking pinkish paleness while Janie had been musing. Also, he had sprouted hair. Or had that been there the whole time? Black hair down to his chin, and when he thought about it, the hair had been there, because it kept poking him in the eye when he was trying to move MBM. Or was it MPM now? He was pink, and Janie was nothing if not flexible.

The gash also looked to be almost gone, and the smaller nicks were healed up. Good thing he had cleaned them out. There was some stuff in them before and he knew from experience super-healing didn't get rid of debris, just healed around it. That was always nasty to fix. Bleh.

Luckily, he still looked out for the count, and Janie hoped he stayed that way for a while, because he didn't feel like being assaulted again. Assault was never fun. And what was with the shape-changing?

Was he a shapeshifter? Cursed? Magic? Some combination thereof? He would have to ask when MPM woke up. From a safe distance. Yes.

After covering the now pink MBM with the quilt, he turned on his heel and marched back into the kitchen to actually fix his wrist.

* * *

One bowl of warm water and twenty minutes later, Janie was gingerly removing the clear blisters that had cropped up and silently praying the blood vessels weren't damaged. He was rather attached to being attached to his hand after all. He and MPM were going to have a _talk_ when he came around.

He really should have gone to a hospital, but if he had gone outside to get there he would have turned into a popsicle, and that was counterproductive to the whole frostbite prevention process. Besides, he totally had frostbite handled. It was only really on his wrist, and that was a hard place to freeze solid. The pain he had while grabbing the quilt also pointed to an O.K. prognosis, and he could move all of his fingers.

Ew. That one was bleeding. Moving on…

His conveniently placed First-aid kit was currently an operation table, and operating on himself with his non-dominant hand was harder than he thought it'd be, but the skin was soft now (Very good.) and the blisters were being properly taken care of (Also good.), but oozing onto the box a bit (Not so good). He was going with majorly-minor frostbite as his professional opinion.

Janie carefully picked up a roll of gauze and began to meticulously wrap his wrist. There were a couple of false starts, and he ended up sort of leaning over sideways with his tongue sticking out to find the right angle for wrapping, but he got it done in about ten minutes. It didn't matter that he only remembered to do it loosely at the last minute. He did it right and that's all that counted.

Now that the medical emergencies had been taken care of properly for everyone, he was starving. Ravenous, even. He peeked in on MPM and, deciding he looked stable enough, got ready to make ramen. Mmm, ramen. College manna from the gods.

He figured he had an hour until he had to wake MPM up. In preparation for the event, he had found the longest non-lethal object in his apartment to poke at his guest with (An umbrella, also not flowery). He was also ready to bolt if need be. Some people just woke up swinging, and they usually hit him if he was standing close enough.

* * *

Ramen, like most of his ideas that night, may not have been the best choice. He also probably should have cut the gauze hanging off his wrist a bit shorter before operating a stove. Oh well. It was short enough now, that was for sure.

Catching on fire tended to do that to most things.

After the Great Ramen Debacle of '11, Janie sat down to properly enjoy his noodles at his rather rickety kitchen table. The three chairs all creaked and rocked, the table was scored with scorch and fork marks, and the finish was finished, but it was a little piece of home away from home. His mother had practically threatened him to take it, so it was probably a magical family heirloom or something.

Speaking of magical, he had to go wake up MPM at some point soon. Might as well do it after he ate. Would MPM need something to eat? Just in case, Janie set aside a bowl of precious ramen noodles for later. No need for all the ramen to get cold and go to waste though, so he gleefully ate most of it in one sitting. Usually he could barely finish a half of one anyway, but _ravenous_.

Licking the last drops of broth of the spoon (Broth! Broth was good for sick people, so maybe he could eat the noodles and leave MPM that!), he washed and put away his utensils and bowl, carefully avoiding the cupboard next to the living room, because sometimes it just sprang open. He didn't feel like dodging falling cutlery tonight.

He glanced at the clock, and estimated two-ish hours had passed (Math was not a strong point, much like verbing.), so he grabbed his most definitely not flowery umbrella, and marched off to poke the proverbial bear sleeping on his couch.

It went about as well as could be expected.

First, he couldn't decide where to poke, because _ribs_ were out due to their maybe injured status, _head_ was never a good place to poke in the first place, and _arms_ were most definitely a no-poke area due to the huge break in his…ulna? No, tibia. Ulna was in the lower bit of the arm. How did he even break it there?

That reminded him, giant anatomy test on Thursday, he should study for that. His memory just plain sucked. And feet…foot…whatever bones freaked him out. He was pretty sure half the bones in the human body were located in the feet, and there was no way he knew them all.

 _Focus._

Janie decided the knee was the place to poke, and promptly did so. Repeatedly and deliberately. MPM wasn't waking up so he may have poked a bit harder than was strictly necessary, but eventually a hand shot out, grabbed his wrist, and yanked him forwards…again. He had gravely underestimated the length of his umbrella.

He was proud to say he didn't squeak this time. Mostly because he was too shocked to make a sound, but still. Also, MPM had grabbed his left wrist, and not his gauzed up right one, which was a big relief, because that would have just hurt. He was also not being turned into a popsicle again, which was a plus.

" _Where am I?"_ Snarled MPM.

Oh. That was his question? He had totally answered it. His all-purpose answers never failed! He may have started to grin a bit and neglected to answer the question, because MPM gave him a shake to get him back into the real world.

 _Ow._

His wrist really shouldn't have bent like that, and he silently commended himself for not tensing up; he liked not having radial fractures. Anyway, question.

Janie tilted his head slightly, "You're in New York. I already told you."

MPM looked confused, which was insulting because Janie thought he had been very clear. "What?"

"Well," Janie tried to slip MPM's grip, "You already kind of assaulted me, and I said you were in New York, but you might have a concussion, so you may have forgotten," but MPM noticed, and _squeezed_ , which was rude, "but concussions don't usually do that, and here we are."

Once more, OW. And concussions usually did do that. Darn. He'd been doing so good.

Well.

Whatever.

MPM looked to be trying to wrap his head around something, "Midgardian, yes?" He went off into incoherent mumbles, his grip suddenly went slack, and MPM was out like a light.

So…it looked like he didn't have brain damage at least.

Wait. _Wait._

 _Midgardian!?_

Well crap. He'd picked up a…not human.

To the phone! Mom would tell him what kind, but he was pretty sure it was Asgardian, aside from the whole _blue_ issue. Mom knew everything. He was pretty sure it was a certifiable fact.

Apparently the phone lines were down. Wonderful. Life was just looking jolly, wasn't it?

And then the lights flickered and died.


	2. Soft-soap

Alright, this marks the end of the Janie POV for a very, _very_ long while. Which is good, because he's not exactly the most stable student in the yoga class.

I still own nothing you recognize, because if I did the movies wouldn't be half as fabulous as they ended up being.

* * *

Janie had a theory. The universe was out to get him.

It was the only reason he could think of that explained the utter disaster that was his life. How on Earth could he have been right there when MPM crashed in the alley way? And the homicidal nature of his guest was just icing on the cake. He couldn't even go out for a stroll (Ok, for a fleeing to the next county) to clear his head because of the mother of all blizzards that was currently going on. The power had left, and had taken such comforts as light and, more importantly, _heat_ , away, leaving him to make a nest of blankets in the mouth of the kitchen so he could be warm and check on MPM at the same time without being within arm's reach. That man had a ridiculously long range, and had actually almost lunged off the couch to get at him the last time Janie woke him up.

He was also more concussed than his brother had been when he had taken a header down the Grand Canyon. That had been fun.

Every time he woke up, he went for Janie, no matter where he was poking/throwing from (he probably had control issues, according to Janie's admittedly spotty psychology knowledge), and demanded to know where he was. Always. Janie would dutifully answer him, because that is what you were supposed to do with people with concussions, and had offered him an ice pack last time his consciousness had surfaced (Because he had just noticed the huge bump on MPM's head, wasn't he just an awesome doctor), which he was sure would be used as a projectile the next time MPM woke up.

It was a safe bet MPM was just concussed, not bleeding internally, so Janie decided to just let him sleep until he woke up naturally. It was safer to his person that way.

Unfortunately, that left him with nothing to do but twiddle his thumbs.

Janie was seriously considering just poking his guest again for something to do, which was probably not a good idea, but he was _bored._

So.

Bored.

TV was out, his stupid brother had "misplaced" all of his books when he had helped him move from his previous apartment, all of his games required at least two people, and he hadn't paid for cell phone service since the Christmas before when Kiki got him a gift subscription. He hadn't really seen the appeal of having a little block of plastic that could tell anyone his location, but now we was starting to see their usefulness. A bit late for that though. The point was there was nothing to do in his whole apartment except to harass the probably deadly personage sacked out on his couch.

Determined to keep living, he wrapped his second-fluffiest quilt around his shoulders ( _Vines,_ not flowers) and went off to dig through his room for some sort of sanity saving entertainment.

He found socks (which were put on, his feet were cold), a safari hat (a gift from a family friend), an Ushanka (which was also put on, it made his ears happy), a flashlight (yay!), and a battery radio.

The radio was thankfully alive, and was brought back to his little nest in the kitchen along with the flashlight. Sadly, no music was playing on any stations; it was all just blizzard warnings and reported sightings of giant…blue…

He tossed a look at MPM. He wasn't too giant, it was all good. Yep.

Tuning back into the radio, he learned apparently the entirety of the Eastern Seaboard was immersed in what was rightfully being called the snowstorm of the century, it had come from the Western Seaboard, and its cause was currently unknown, but being seriously looked into by government officials. Splendid. Because the government was so trustworthy about out-of-the-ordinary events.

Sarcasm most definitely intended.

He entertained himself for a good three hours by mocking and mimicking the various reporters, and making one-sided bets with MPM about what the various statements would be. He thought he was actually pretty accurate.

"I bet he's going to make some sort of snow pun, like 'they're getting a _frosty_ reception.'" He glanced at MPM, "How about you?"

That quickly degraded into an argument with Janie manning both sides and making excellent points, but eventually conceding to himself on MPM's side. He had a different voice for MPM and everything.

It was about at that point he realized he hadn't really slept since the day before, and that was only really a catnap. He was almost as exhausted as he was ravenous earlier, which was impressive, because usually he couldn't get his brain to shut up long enough to even think about yawning.

He also started to trip over the trashcan lids whenever he got up to check on MPM and almost brained himself on the counter when he had actually slipped. So sleep sounded awesome. After he moved the lids to somewhere less life threatening.

He ended up just chucking them out into the street through the window. Once again, it was a night for bad decisions.

Now he was _really_ cold, covered with snow, and hungry. And his wrist was starting to really, really hurt, which was just fantastic. He was all out of painkillers too, except for the really high-grade medical stuff he technically shouldn't have, so pain relief was out. It was just time to call it a night.

Gathering up his blankets, he plodded through the kitchen, into the bedroom, and collapsed on his bed. It made a worrying noise, but he was comfy and did not care. Janie started to drift off, and had almost reached the Land of Nod, when his conscious piped up.

 _We should check on MPM, just to make sure he'll be ok for the next couple of hours._

Dratted thing.

What he had was a conundrum. If he stood up, he would never get comfortable again, and he _liked_ being comfortable. On the other hand, his guilt could keep him up all night if he didn't make sure MPM wasn't going to die while he was napping. He tugged on the earflaps of his hat in thought. Hmmm…

 _Gah._

Who was he kidding?

Why did he have to be such a caring, wonderful person?

He hauled himself up from his nice, _warm,_ _ **comfortable**_ bed to go check on the possibly dangerous, definitely not friendly man on his couch that had assaulted him. Repeatedly. And possibly caused him permanent damage. That wasn't crazy at all.

Maybe his psychologist was onto something.

The man did have a Ph.D., and they were only generally given to people who earned them through such things as _studying_ and _experience_. He should probably buy him flowers or something to apologize for his behavior.

Still trying to devise a way to say sorry about the last ten years without actually meaning it, he meandered into the kitchen, fiddling with the gauze on his wrist. He should probably look at it before he went to sleep, but that would require energy. He had no more energy to do anything with, so tough luck wrist.

He looked up from messing with his injury just in time to see MPM leap off his couch at him _._

Like a _panther._

* * *

Loki was not in a good mood. His head was throbbing and he was exhausted but otherwise unharmed, which was the only really positive thing that could be said about his situation. The real problem was the worrisome lapse in his memory.

The last thing he could recall was Thor heaving him off of the Bifröst and into the vast expanse of endless space around it. Which lead to his next, much larger issue: he had no idea where he was.

It was frustrating, to say the least. He was used to knowing such simple things, and maybe this was how his bro- Thor felt all the time.

He had awoken on a highly uncomfortable surface in the dark, which gave him no hint of his whereabouts, and had spent his last moments of semi-consciousness contemplating it. It was too small, and his neck ached from the awkward angle he had been propped at. The material was rough and made him itch. Whatever it was was probably the ugliest one of its lot, and was his first indication that he was not, in fact, on Asgard anymore.

He sat up, which sent something skittering to the floor and revealed he had been covered with a blanket at some point. It had a simple brown diamond pattern and was quite warm, which only served to put him on higher alert. People were only thoughtful if they wanted something.

Something was on his arm. After a quick examination, he decided it was a crude sort of brace.

 _Was I injured?_

He certainly wasn't anymore, so he vanished the contraption with a wave of his hand. It took much more effort than he was comfortable with, but at least his magic was still doing what he wanted.

It was then he heard something come shuffling down a hallway directly behind him. Not one to be caught unawares, Loki turned and readied himself for whatever or whoever may appear.

As soon as the unidentified person rounded the doorway, he made his move. He decided to incapacitate the mystery person and promptly launched himself towards it, intent on getting some answers.

The man, because apparently _it_ was a _him_ , looked up from examining something on his wrist at the last moment and tried to duck out of the way with a yelp. He managed to dodge the first strike, tripping backwards out of Loki's reach, and caught himself on the counter. The ridiculous ear-hat on his head was shunted off in the process, and an absurd mop of hair sprang free.

"Shh! You'll wake the neighbors," hissed the man.

 _The what?_ Loki scowled at him. Was he being mocked?

The possible mocker grinned at the glare directed at him, danced away from Loki's second lunge, and promptly backed himself into a wall of cupboards. The third attempt at evasion was not quite as successful as the first two, and after a small scuffle, he found himself wrenched off of the ground and slammed against the wall. He stopped grinning, and Loki felt a thrill of vindication at wiping the smug look from this Midgardian's face.

The Midgardian delicately tried to peel Loki's fingers off of his shirt, which he promptly stopped when Loki gave him a shake in warning. Finding escape to be impossible, he settled, relaxed, and assumed an expression of irritation Loki would have found amusing if he had cared.

Instead, he demanded, " _Where am I?"_

"How are you so fast?" His captive looked utterly perplexed, "You were literally concussed to kingdom come last time I checked. Super-healing, right?"

"Where. Am. I?"

Perhaps sensing Loki was reaching the end of his rope, the man answered, "New York," and then, "Just like the last ten times you asked. This isn't some magical TARDIS-esque apartment, you know."

"New York…" Loki paused in thought _, It sounds familiar_ , "I am on Midgard?" This was a disturbing turn of events. The Midgardians, like most others, wouldn't be too happy to see him. Especially regarding the Destroyer incident.

"Hopefully. Unless we accidentally launched ourselves off the planet's surface or something. It's happened. Could you let go? You're kind of crushing my trachea, which leads to my bronchi, then to m-."

"Why am I here?" He needed to know how he had ended up in this dwelling. It couldn't really be called a home.

"Air is important. I could answer better if you let go." He shot Loki a disgustingly cheerful smile. Loki felt and barely repressed the need to crush it right off his face.

"That will not happen until you answer my questions to my satisfaction."

"Really? That's what you're going with?" They sat there and glared at each other until the man acquiesced, "Fine. I brought you here."

"Why?" What did this Midgardian think he could gain from helping him?

"Because it was blizzarding, and I'm a nice guy." He glanced at Loki, who wasn't impressed with his explanation, and mildly added, "I was just walking home from one of my jobs when I saw you in an alley way. You made a pretty impressive crater."

They stood in silence for a moment, Loki contemplating motives, and Midgardian contemplating him. Suddenly coming to a decision, the Midgardian announced, "I'm Janie by the way, just in case you care."

Loki really didn't care, but he had gotten the information he wanted so he supposed he could release this 'Janie' and deal with him later.

He smoothly dropped the Midgardian, brushed himself off, and went to properly examine his surroundings. The Midgardian was hardly a threat. As he approached a window next to a rundown-looking table, he noted Janie had not been exaggerating with his assertion that it had been 'blizzarding'. It was beginning to look like Jotunheim…

How had the aftermath of his plan had played out? Maybe the war had been renewed. That would probably make Thor happy at least. Maybe they had already forgotten him.

A supremely put-upon voice cut through his thoughts, "Are you hungry?"

"What?"

"Are. You. Hungry. Very simple. Super-healing tends to make people _peckish_ in my experience, either that or very grumpy. You've already got that part covered, though. An' I'm going to sleep for like a month, so I figured I should check before I go slip into a coma." He shrugged sleepily at Loki, "So are you hungry?"

Loki sneered at the impudence in his tone, did he not know who he was talking to? Why he should…he shoved down his murderous urges to actually contemplate the question. "Why?"

Janie blinked in surprise, then put a finger to his chin in thought, "Well, I'm morally obligated to feed the people that I bring into my house…apartment…thing." He bounced on his toes nervously, "Dad was a stickler for hospitality. So, food?"

"No." Well, yes, but he wasn't going to stoop to asking a Midgardian for food. He wasn't that desperate.

Janie took the rejection with good humor, "Alright, but if you do, there's some ramen around here somewhere with your name on it. It might be in the fridge," he pointed at a small silver box, "or somewhere on the counter." He gestured expansively at the speckled surface and grinned, "Have fun with your superiority complex. G'night."

And with that, he turned on his heel and walked down the length of the kitchen towards his sleeping chambers. Loki was fairly certain he had just been insulted, but was also starting to feel the effects of expending magic to heal himself, as well as his little trip through the universe. He could kill the Midgardian for impertinence later.

Healing was a process that tended to take up absurd amounts of energy if it wasn't properly monitored, and as he had been unconscious the whole time, there was no monitoring and thus there was too much energy expenditure. Energy that he felt he rather needed to reacquire. Grudgingly, he began to search for the 'ramen', and scoured the counters and the 'fridge'. He had actually gotten a bit sidetracked by the thing.

It was colder on the inside than the outside, which was impressive because it was very chilly, and he could not quite understand why. He believed it had something to do with the cord that attached it to the wall, but before he could discover how, Janie skidded back into the kitchen.

His hands were shoved firmly into his pockets and he was searching for something on the floor with the air of a man on a mission. Loki watched him putter around for a while, his irritation slowly growing, before finally snapping " _What?"_

Janie looked up, apparently having forgotten Loki was there at all, and blinked owlishly at him.

 _Stupid Midgardians._

"I'm looking for my hat. Have you seen it?" He drew some vague rectangles in the air, "It's about this big, very furry, and a gift from a friend of mine. I kind of need it."

He then proceeded to carefully search the area around Loki, staying a good arm's length away at all times, and suddenly lit up with an 'ah!'

"'Scuse me." He shimmied past Loki, stooped down, and nabbed what was presumably his hat. Janie glanced at Loki and offered a completely unwanted explanation, "I hate it when my ears get cold."

Hat now firmly on, he cocked his head at Loki and asked, "Are you planning on sleeping at all?"

"Of course." The fool didn't think he was that gullible, did he? He wasn't going to leave himself that vulnerable, and he didn't think he was up to setting up some of his more nasty wards. Sleep would have to wait until he could properly protect himself. He didn't think the Midgardian could do anything to him, but he would rather be wrong and alive than wrong and dead.

Janie looked dubious, "Alright. In case you get a case of late night munchies, the forks are here," He opened a drawer next to the table, "and the ramen needs heating before you eat it. I don't care how you do it unless it ends with the kitchen in flames."

He began to stroll back to his room, and then turned back around, "Actually, feel free to do that if you can do it quietly. I don't care as long as I don't wake up."

And with that, he strode back to his room, utterly done with dealing with Loki for the night.

Loki eventually found the 'ramen' on the table and heated it with a whiff of magic. It was a mere parlor trick, but it took much more strain than he was comfortable with. He seriously considered loudly burning down the kitchen just to be contrary, but restrained himself because that would leave him out in the snow, and he wasn't sure how his form would interact with so much exposure to the cold.

He didn't want to risk turning.

The ramen was surprisingly good for Midgardian fare, and quite filling, not that he would tell the Midgardian. It helped him to clear his head and, feeling refreshed; he started planning his next move to pass the night away.


	3. Fib

AN: This is going to take a while to get off of the ground, but I can't actually cut out anything without impacting the story farther along. Believe me, I tried, but my much more talented writing buddy threatened bodily harm if I messed with it any more than I already have.

* * *

Morning rolled around, and Loki had decided he would have to tolerate the Midgardian until he had enough magic to survive the cold or the blizzard let up. As much as he was loathe to admit it, he had been offered hospitality by the irritating thing, and it was simply unacceptable to answer it with murder.

His magic was restoring at a slower rate than he would have liked, and any of his bigger tricks, such as teleportation and large illusions, were infuriatingly out of his grasp. At least his biggest lie was still firmly in place.

He absentmindedly rubbed his hands together to chase away the cold, and continued planning.

Eventually, the Midgardian stumbled out into the kitchen and clicked a switch on the wall. Nothing happened and the Midgardian proceeded to look cold and miserable. He turned on his heel, opened a closet between his room and the kitchen, and began rifling through the rubbish for something.

After a good ten minutes of digging, he emerged victoriously with what looked to be a lantern. The glass had an impressive crack playing down the side, and was framed by a metal of some sort. It seemed to be very old and dubiously constructed. At that point Loki realized how dark it had been the entire time he had been there. _Perhaps jötnar have excellent night vision,_ he thought with a grimace.

Janie swept towards the table, once again apparently forgetting Loki's presence, and began to mess around with the lantern.

The glass globe was first taken off, and set gingerly on the table. Now that it was closer, Loki could see the crack had been carefully patched with something. Janie delicately removed the fuel cap and checked inside, which elicited a wince. Casting a glance and a grin at Loki he said, "Maybe leaving a lantern full of flammable stuff at the bottom of my closet wasn't my best idea."

A couple seconds of staring later, when it became obvious Loki wasn't going to interact with him outside of threats, he shrugged and continued without a care in the world.

"I mean, this was a gift from my brother, a souvenir from some train museum," he explained while checking the mantle, "And I had been gearing up to use it when he dropped by, because who doesn't like a little firelight ambiance?"

He grinned at Loki again and, finding everything up to standard, replaced the globe of glass, "Anyway, I couldn't let him see that I was actually using the stupid thing, because he would go all ' _I knew you cared!'_ and, I don't know, try to hug me or something." He gingerly grabbed a handle and turned it to the left a couple of times, began to carefully pump it, and continued, "And that's always awkward, you know? I mean, hugs are great, but there's a time and a place, and they're not acceptable when there is a feud going on between you and the hugger."

Done with pumping, he felt along the base of the lamp until he hit another, smaller lever, and neatly turned it so the point was facing down rather than up. Then he turned a large knob in the center of the base ever so slightly. The lantern let out a soft gurgle, but Loki had really stopped listening, caught on the fact that this Midgardian had a brother he had issues with as well. He felt something at the back of his mind that felt oddly like commiseration and tried to ignore it, but to no avail.

Loki broke his self-imposed vow of silence, "Feud?"

Janie looked oddly delighted that Loki had started to talk back, "Well, feud might be a bit dramatic, but yeah. We aren't really on the best terms."

"Is there any particular reason why you hate each other?"

"Oh, we don't _hate_ each other," He stood and started rooting through the nearby drawers, "I just can't tolerate him for more than an hour at a time, and he keeps trying to butt into my business."

It was apparent that he was going to leave that line of questioning there, and Loki carefully filed the sore spot away for future usage. You never knew when that sort of thing could come in handy.

"Aha!" Janie straightened and triumphantly waved a box of matches over his head, "I found them. I was afraid I'd have to break out my flint."

He turned back to the lamp, turned the knob on the front all the way to the opened position, struck a match, and lit the oil in one practiced motion. Flames flared to life for a few seconds, and then a soft glow filled the room. The lantern was apparently in working condition.

"Let there be light!"

Loki took the Midgardian's moment of success to properly examine Janie. His ridiculous ear-hat was still in place, but a couple of dark brown curls spilled from the confines of his hat onto his forehead. They lacked any sort of rhyme or reason, and Loki supposed if he were to take off his hat, the resulting mass of hair would be uncontrollable.

He was also very pale and the color of his hair just made him look more so. His pallor would have actually been alarming if Loki cared about such things, and made his freckles pop impressively as the only real spots of color on his face.

Swathed in a blanket as he was, it was hard to pin down exactly how large Janie was. Recalling their earlier encounter, Loki decided he was both very short and very lean and thus no trouble at all. In fact, he would go so far as to say Janie was quite delicate.

Inspection complete, Loki tuned back into the present and watched as Janie scooped up the lantern and wandered out of the kitchen into the main room, grabbing a little box off of the counter as he passed it.

Loki, having nothing better to do at the time, got up and reluctantly followed him to the spot where he had regained consciousness. He walked in just in time to see Janie standing on the tips of his toes on the arm of the obnoxiously floral couch in order to reach the fan above it. He was attaching the lantern to one of the blades of the fan with a line of very questionable looking rope, presumably to light up as much of the room as possible. For some unfathomable reason, he had decided to just use his left hand, and used the other one to keep his blanket around his shoulders. Maybe it was colder than Loki had originally thought.

The blade bent ominously under its new weight, but held firm, and the lantern managed to light up almost the entire apartment from its new angle. Contrary to Janie's previous suggestion, it really didn't help the ambiance. It just made the pathetic conditions Loki was forced into more apparent.

Janie hopped down onto the couch, settled in, and started fiddling with the box he had grabbed from the kitchen. He launched off into a world of his own for a good couple of minutes until it became apparent the only sounds that would come out of said box would be grating static, at which point he tossed the box under the couch and dramatically flopped backwards in despair.

During this process, Loki had been standing in the doorway in a manner that might be described as awkward for anyone that hadn't been a prince for a good thousand years or so. Awkward was never a word that could be applied to Loki, much like 'nervous' or 'sorry'. Instead, he just told himself he didn't want to go sit in the dark kitchen when there was a perfectly good room lit up, and that was the only reason why he was standing there.

After a few moments of balefully staring at the ceiling, Janie peeked over to where Loki was, for lack of a better term, looming uncertainly in the doorway and suddenly remembered something. "Oh! I forgot that people generally eat breakfast. Do you want some?"

"Some what?"

"Some breakfast." Janie rolled off the couch and almost tripped on the blanked he had draped across his shoulders. "You don't really look much better than you were before."

Loki grudgingly concurred, so he took the most logical course of action. "Yes, I would like to eat. Go fetch me something."

Instead of actually doing what he was told and acting like the lowly Midgardian that he was, Janie scoffed at the order, "Do I look like a servant to you? Go make something yourself. The only thing I've got is cheerios and ramen, so pick your poison."

He then pranced into the kitchen past Loki, who was still in shock that he had just been disregarded by a _Midgardian_ of all things, and went towards the veritable wall of cupboards, "For future reference, the bowls, plates, and mugs are in here," he wiggled the door of the cupboard second closest to the living room at Loki, "while the spoons are with the forks."

Behind him, Loki attempted to swallow the urge to violently shake some respect into Janie for his slight.

Honestly, it wasn't going too well.

Loki stalked up to the insulting little _creature_ , seized his arm, and spun him so if their height differences weren't so great, they would have been nose to nose. The cupboard door slammed shut behind them.

"You will treat me with _respect,_ you pathetic little mortal. You should be grateful that you still live to be ordered about by-"

"Define respect." Janie apparently had a death wish of some sort. He looked vaguely surprised due to the sudden proximity to an angry and absolutely huge person, and yet he had interrupted said murderous man in the middle of what was shaping up to be one of the most threatening speeches of Loki's life. "Whoever said I didn't respect you? Maybe this is all a great big misunderstanding, and my view on respect is different from yours."

Janie began sidling away from Loki as he tried to reason his way out of being pulverized, but Loki easily dismissed his distraction, being an expert at that sort of thing, and slammed a palm next to the Midgardian's head to curtail his retreat.

"I needn't explain myself to you, and there has been no misunderstanding. You will respect me, or insulting me will be the last thing you ever do. Do you understand, or is that too much for your primitive little hindbrain to manage?"

"Brain stem and cerebellum."

"What?"

"That's a hindbrain. A Brain stem and a cerebellum. And I still don't see where the whole disrespect issue has sprung up from. You were the one being all…" Janie trailed off and stared into the middle distance, looking oddly puzzled.

"Do not ignore me, you wretched creature." Loki shook him to regain his attention "What is so important it requires your interest at this time?"

"Hmm? Nothing. I've just never been good at paying attention to rants, you know? I mean, they're all engaging at the beginning, but as it goes on, it sort of loses momentum for most people." He refocused on Loki, and added sincerely, "But you were doing good, don't get me wrong."

That might have worked on Thor or any of his brutish friends, but not him.

" _You dare lie to me?_ "

"No! No lies here. Why would I lie to you?"

"You tell me. Why are you lying to me?" Loki menaced impressively if he did say so himself, and he was intent on answers.

Janie apparently found the question oddly funny, and bit back a grin before regaining himself and answering, "Wouldn't you lie to a homicidal person who had you cornered? It seems pretty simple to me."

Loki staunchly ignored the little part of his brain agreeing with the Midgardian's reasoning, he was not _homicidal,_ "Regardless, what was it? Do not lie again, or I will not be as forgiving."

"Why do you care? I might have been trying to decide what to eat for breakfast, or wondering when the snow would stop. Maybe it wasn't related to you at all, and that was why I didn't want to say whatever I was thinking."

"I find that very unlikely. I care because you might be getting ideas which will end badly for both of us." And he was curious, not that he would admit to it out loud.

Having made his point, Loki took a step back and watched as Janie tried to find a way to wiggle out of answering the question. He was staring intently at the floor, mentally picking apart the conversation in an attempt to escape.

Finally he looked up from the floor and sheepishly asked, "What would you do to me if I told you I forgot?"

That was another lie. Loki had had it with Midgardians who thought they were clever trying to lie their way out of dealing with him. That was _his_ policy. He snarled and started to advance on Janie again.

"I would have to cut out your tongue. I sincerely hope that was not your answer."

" _No_ , that was purely hypothetical and not at all my real answer." Janie looked around anxiously, eyes flickering between Loki and the rest of the kitchen. Eventually, he seemed to come to the conclusion that answering truthfully was the only way out of bodily harm, as Loki wanted him to.

"…You tingle."

That was not the answer Loki had expected. He blinked, "Come again?"

"You heard me." Janie irritably crossed his arms and tried to melt backwards into the cabinet. It was going about as well as Loki's attempt at anger management.

"Care to expand?"

"Well, no. I really wouldn't. Is not expanding an option?"

Loki pinned him with his most unimpressed look rather than answering. Janie puffed up in exasperation for a few seconds, then muttered, "I don't know why I have to answer all of your questions, but you can decide which you c-"

One look at the definitely murderous edge on Loki's face, and Janie decided just giving Loki what he wanted would be the most prudent action. "Magic has a…a feeling. It's all tingly. You weren't tingly before, thus your magic just came back, therefore magical exhaustion."

Having achieved what he wanted, Loki stepped back again and smirked. "Now was that so hard?"

"You have no idea. Can I eat now, or are you going to keep threatening me?" Once again proving his absolute lack of self-preservation, he turned his back on Loki and reopened the cupboard he had been in before. He emerged with two bowls and swanned to the rickety table, pausing to check out the window.

The view was just snow. Not even falling snow, just a completely whited out square. Janie continued on to the table after seeing how uninteresting it was outside and set down both bowls on opposite sides of the table. He sharply turned on his heel to face Loki and asked, "So, ramen or cheerios?"

Loki blinked at Janie's recovery. "That was sudden."

"What was?" Janie turned around again and rifled through the fridge.

"In my experience, mortals tend to take a while to stop cowering after such a confrontation." Loki snaked forwards and sank into the chair closest to the window.

"Yeah?" He set a carton of milk in between them and went off to the cutlery drawer. "Well, in my experience, the confronter in question isn't quite as bipolar as you are."

Janie slid a spoon to Loki, who sent him a nasty look that informed him he knew he had been insulted, but he took it anyway.

He was too tired to deal with another act of insolence right now.


	4. Hedge

Yeah. Still alive. Still don't own anything.

* * *

While Loki scowled contemplatively at his spoon, Janie had gone to another cupboard and retrieved a box with ' _Cheerios'_ emblazoned across the front and ' _Smile_ ' across the back. He thumped the irritatingly yellow box next to the milk after pouring its contents into his own bowl.

Loki stared at him as he tipped the milk into the bowl, and then cautiously copied the actions after Janie began to nibble at his food. At least he knew it wasn't poisoned.

They dined in silence for a good six minutes or so before Loki asked, "Why are they called 'Cheerios'?"

Janie leaned backwards and looked to the ceiling in thought for a couple of seconds, then glanced back and answered, "I don't know. Maybe because they make people happy and they're shaped like little o's. What do you think?"

Resting his chin on his hand, Loki contemplated the sunny box in front of him, "That seems likely. Cheery O's. Not very imaginative, is it?"

"Eh," Janie flicked some milk off his spoon and waved it around, "there are worse. I mean, Fruit Loops are just fruit flavored circles, Honey Combs are little hexagons that taste like honey, and Life."

"Life what?"

"…Gives life?"

Loki scoffed, "You were doing so well."

"Well, some names are just weird." Janie used his spoon to draw patterns in the bottom of his bowl with the last of the milk, then suddenly stopped and looked at Loki, "Speaking of names, I never asked yours. What is it?"

Loki was feeling altruistic after being given breakfast, so decided to give him a straight answer.

"I am Loki of-" He cut himself off.

 _Of what? Asgard? Jotunheim? Am I Odinson or_ _Laufeyson? Or neither?_

Unaware of Loki's identity crisis, Janie eyed him warily from across the table and asked, "Like the Loki of legend? Magic and Vikings and horses, oh my?"

A thrill of smugness made its way through his panic. _Legend._ "Yes, that one. I don't suppose there are many mortals named Loki you know of?"

Janie looked positively gleeful. "Well no, but I had to make sure. It's one of those really impressive names, so people decide they should name their kid that to try to make them impressive too. I knew a kid named Thor once though."

Loki tensed up at the mention of his used-to-be brother, Janie caught it but carried on without a hitch, "I felt really bad for him. Everyone just called him Tom because no one could take someone named 'Thor' seriously, but it was still there. And then the whole Tom Riddle thing happened, so he was toast."

He smiled at the memory, and Loki raised an eyebrow, "You don't look particularly sorry."

A positively wicked little grin was sent his way, and then Janie changed the subject, "So I guess that makes you Asgardian?"

 _That_ killed Loki's good mood. His face twisted into a grimace, and he made to get up from the table and away from the questions. He stormed off, or at least tried to with the limited space presented, and slumped exhaustedly onto the couch. He hated the thing. When his magic came back properly, he would burn it to ashes along with the kitchen and the Midgardian.

Janie's voice came sailing in through the doorway, "Ok then, that was a sore spot if I've ever seen one. Um…do you want to talk about it?"

He received an incoherent snarl in response.

"Hey! Don't knock it 'til you try it. Ignoring the problem just makes it worse, and I've found talking things out with people gives new perspective."

"What have I told you about lying to me? I am the God of Lies; any of your petty falsehoods are easily discerned and dispelled." Loki shifted on the couch, fruitlessly searching for a comfortable position.

"Really? How can you tell?" Janie actually sounded interested. "If you've got a bad case of magical exhaustion, it can't be a magical ability, right? Can you just tell, or is it a sort of spidey-sense deal?"

"Spidey-sense?" Half the things coming out of this Midgardian's mouth weren't actually words, he would swear to it.

"Yeah, like a feeling. There's this guy who swings around in Manhattan that's got this whole spider motif going on, and as far as the internet can figure he gets a signal from his brain that warns him of his impending doom. Is it sort of like that, but with dirty rotten lies?"

Janie was moving around the kitchen, clattering around and presumably putting all of his paraphernalia away while Loki attempted to answer, because he had a captive audience who actually _cared_.

"…I've never had to explain it before."

"What? They weren't even curious?"

"Generally, no."

"You've obviously been hanging out with the wrong people." The rinsing was starting to sound suspiciously like splashing around in the water, if the chipper tone of voice was anything to go by. No one could sound that happy while washing dishes. "So, how do you tell?"

"I suppose it's a combination of intuition, like this 'spidey-sense' and my own extensive knowledge of lying." Loki was propped up against an arm of the flowery monstrosity, chin in hand, and trying to decide where on Midgard he was going to sleep. He'd risk assassination at this point. "I wouldn't be a very good candidate for my title if I couldn't lie well, would I?"

"Guess not," Janie admitted, "but I can't figure out how you've never had to explain this before. No one wanted to know why you could tell that they were fibbing? I'd at least want to know so I could see if there was a way to get one past you."

He could apparently feel the waves of animosity coming off of Loki from the other room, because the splashing paused and he quickly assured him, "That wasn't what I was doing by the way, I was really curious. Plus, I can't see how someone could blatantly lie to you and get away with it."

Loki relaxed minutely, because that wasn't even slightly a lie, and replied, "They were all too busy with weapons training and learning the fine art of barbarianism to really care what I did or how I did it."

After he had spoken, he paused for a bit and added, "Don't think I didn't see what you did there."

Janie was scuttling around the kitchen, putting away all of the things he had just washed judging by the slamming drawers and cabinets, when he put on his very best insulted voice and said "I did nothing, that's hurtful." He came into the living room and leaned on the doorway, "But don't let me stop you talking about Planet Testosterone. By all means, continue."

There was a _thing_ on the floor next to Loki's foot. Instead of answering, he picked it up and began examining it. _What is it?_

It was a clear pouch filled with a blue, slushy liquid. When he flipped it over he realized only the back half was transparent, and the front had a simple drawing of an odd, pink, star-shaped thing smiling and standing next to an equally odd striped fish.

While he was trying to make sense of the sheer absurdity of the picture, Janie wandered up and rested against the back of the couch. He threw a sidelong glance at the pouch "That's an ice pack. When someone has a bump or burn we put something cold on it to make it stop hurting or swelling. You had this huge bump on your head," he tapped his left temple, "so I had to put that on it while you were out."

Since the Midgardian was in such a giving mood… "What in all the nine realms are these _things_?"

Sidling closer, the Midgardian looked over his shoulder at the 'picture' and smiled wistfully. "That is a starfish," he tapped the pink thing, and then the striped fish, "and that is a clownfish."

Loki sneered at the names, "Not very original, are they?"

"Well, fish are like cereal." Janie shrugged, then parroted, "Don't think I didn't see what you did there."

He quickly ducked as Loki pitched the ice pack over his shoulder at his face. "I thought you'd be a better shot then that, being over a thousand years old and all."

"If I wanted to hit you, I would have." That wasn't strictly true, if he was being honest with himself. Loki was starting to see double.

Janie peeled himself off the back of the couch and perched himself on the side farthest from the kitchen. He leaned forwards, head cocked and brow furrowed, and gave Loki a quick onceover. "You're not looking so good. Maybe you should go and actually sleep."

A scoff was all he got from Loki, but he continued, "I'm serious. You've got like zero energy, and your body keeps trying to generate magic from what you've got. If you don't sleep, you'll shut down anyway."

"And where do you suggest I sleep?" Loki irritably countered. "I refuse to sleep out here on this monstrosity, and your pitifully small residence does not have any options I would be willing to take."

"I was getting there, chill out."

That may not have been the best choice of words to present Loki with. "What did you say?"

"Chill out, as in calm down, deep breaths, cool your jets, et cetera et cetera. Why?"

"Never tell me to 'chill out' again if you value your life." He glared at Janie with all of the venom he could muster.

"Alright, alright, no need to get all touchy." Janie shifted slightly away from Loki. "I was going to say you could borrow my bed. I'm not going to use it for the next twelve hours or so, so it's open."

That was unexpected, and very suspicious. Just what did he want from Loki that was making him act so courteously?

Janie took his suspicious stare as mistrust, rightfully so, and sighed in exasperation. "What do you think I'm going to do to you? I'm going to be here the whole time, and you're going to have to sleep at some point, so you might as well use the bed."

Loki still was not convinced of the innocence of Janie's motives, and apparently it showed because Janie pinched the bridge of his nose, looked at him, and came to a decision.

"I swear by my honor as…as a doctor-in-training and the Hippocratic Oath I won't do anything to you while you're sleeping." He looked positively pained by the declaration, "Is that good enough for you?"

He stared at Janie for a long while, mentally examining the vow and the notion that he was lying about _something_ , before admitting, "It is passable." Loki stood, swaying slightly. He was too tired to try to figure out what this 'hippocratic oath' was. "Show me to your chambers."

"Go straight through the kitchen, down the hallway, and it's the door at the very end. The bathroom is the door next to it if you need it, and there are quilts under the bed if you get cold." He pointed down to a door at the opposite end of the hall, and then curled up on the couch where Loki had just vacated. "Chop chop."

Glaring at Janie for his insolence, but finding no energy to correct the behavior, Loki walked down the length of the hallway to the door at the end. He opened it and was immediately hit with the view of one of the messiest rooms he had seen in his entire life. Counting Thor's.

Empty shelves lined the walls, looking forlorn, unused, and more than a little bit dusty. The walls had diagrams of the human body pinned up with little notes scrawled all over them, and if Loki weren't so tired he would have been much more interested in reading them.

The floor was in a category of its own it terms of sheer messiness. There was a neat row of boxes to the left of the bed that seemed to serve as the closet and all of the clothes were neatly squirreled away, which meant, blessedly, the mess wasn't even clothing related in the slightest.

Coating the ground was a layer of random objects strewn about and burying each other. From a glance Loki saw a collection of rocks over in the corner, what looked to be a pile of feathers under one of the diagrams, and an absolutely absurd amount of unidentifiable stuff everywhere else.

Apparently he had stopped in shock because Janie sheepishly tossed down the hall, "Oh, sorry about that! There's a trail through to the bed, but you can step on stuff if you need to. Just be careful what you stand on."

With that cryptic warning, he promptly went back to whatever he was doing. It sounded like he was trying to memorize an incantation, but Loki was fairly certain Janie was some sort of healer, and he sincerely doubted a Midgardian could magically outfox him even in his current state.

He spotted the 'trail' after a couple of minutes, and made his way to the bed. He sat down, took off his boots, and reflexively vanished away his armor. That was much more comfortable, and his magic was staring to respond better as well. Things seemed to be looking up.

The bed was much smaller than what he was used to, but it was better than the couch, and he stretched out onto it feeling very pleased with himself. The light from the lantern trickled in through the slightly opened door, and he found himself falling asleep within seconds.


	5. Prevaricate

We're still going. This doesn't seem important, but it might be later. That's all I'm saying.

* * *

When Loki blinked awake it took him a few moments to regain his bearings. He had managed to stay on the bed the whole night, which he supposed was a good thing, but the quilt he was using had been lost to the mounds of odds and ends all over the floor. He didn't expect to ever see it again.

After affirming he had not been altered in any way, shape, or form while he had been asleep, he stood and suddenly noticed the room looked less…catastrophic than it had been earlier. The pathway was considerably wider and more noticeable; some of the diagrams were missing from the walls and from what he could see the shelves looked rather less dusty.

How long had he been asleep?

He investigated and used the bathroom, then walked through the kitchen, whose single window was rattling violently in the wind, into the living room in search of the Midgardian. They needed to discuss the fact that he had apparently been popping in and out of the room while Loki had been sleeping, which admittedly was completely fine by the agreement, but common courtesy dictated Janie _not_ do that.

Emerging into the living room, Loki discovered where all of the missing clutter had gone.

The diagrams haphazardly sprawled across the floor, held down by random odds and ends placed at their corners, pocked by hundreds of little colored pieces of tape. The jumble of objects that wasn't being used to hold down the papers was scattered in a halo revolving around the couch and thus Janie.

Janie himself was sitting on the couch as unconventionally as possible. He was lying on the cushions, but hanging upside-down off the front with his knees hooked over the back of the couch as leverage, somehow managing to keep his hat on. His fingers were steepled thoughtfully under his chin, or _over_ his chin since he was inverted, and he was staring deeply into the screen of a small black box balanced precariously on a shelf. At some point he had donned a grey jacket slightly too large for him which was hanging loosely off of his frame like a deflated sail.

In short, he looked ridiculous.

"Oh! You're awake." Janie turned his head slightly and squinted at Loki. "You look a bit better. What happened to all of your pizzazz?"

 _Pizzazz?_ He glanced down at himself. _Oh_.

He briefly considered summoning his battle gear back, but then decided it simply wasn't worth the effort. He really couldn't care less what this Midgardian thought of him, and it could get restrictive after wearing it for long periods of time.

Apparently he wasn't even expected to answer, because Janie jumped to another topic altogether without waiting for a reply.

"I have a proposal for you." He turned himself entirely to watch Loki, still hanging off of couch.

"Really? Do tell." Loki, in turn, leaned against the doorway and proceeded to look very unimpressed and condescending.

"Your sarcasm has no effect on me. Anyway," he smoothly unhooked his knees and swiveled so he ended up sitting on the couch correctly, "I'm proposing a truce."

Loki took this moment to scoff. As if he would ever enter into a truce with a Midgardian.

"You can't be derisive until I tell you the terms. I really don't want this to end up as a sort of Farmer and the Viper moment. I'd rather more of an Androcles Lion dealio, but that probably won't happen."

Janie dug around on the ground for his quilt for a moment, came up victorious, and wrapped himself in it. "So, I propose that you stop assaulting me whenever I insult your delicate sensibilities, and I'll stop doing whatever it is that offended you if it's a fair suggestion."

Much to his own disgust, Loki was considering it. There was one obvious problem though…"Define 'fair' for me."

"It has to be possible for me to stop doing, like talking about something specific, but not ridiculous, like not talking at all. Does that sound alright?"

After a good five minutes of mental debate Loki admitted agreeing would make his stay much easier. Besides, he could always find a way out of the deal. "I suppose. You will stop immediately if I say so?"

"Only if you don't attack me first."

And with that, Janie stood and walked over to where Loki was and stuck out his right hand to seal the deal. After one firm shake, he tripped back to the couch where he settled down next to one arm, leaving plenty of room for Loki if he wanted to sit.

The Midgardian was looking entirely too pleased with himself. Loki decided to rectify that. "You do realize I am the God of Lies?"

He let the sentence hang in the air and watched as Janie soaked in the implications. It wasn't making as much of an impact as he would have liked.

Instead of dawning horror or betrayal, he just looked at Loki incredulously and scoffed, "I didn't take you for an _oath breaker_."

The way he had said 'oath breaker' was dangerously close to how people called others 'murderers' or 'frost giants', and it jarred Loki slightly. Apparently this Janie was a man of his word, and took vows very seriously. It was always good to know these kinds of things.

"I will not go back on my word once it is given," Loki stiffly admitted, "I was merely pointing out your deal may not have been as foolproof as you originally thought."

That was enough to make Janie stop looking at him so contemptuously, which was oddly relieving, and he replied, "I'm a firm believer in loopholes. If you find one, which you probably will, go for it. I've already got a list of loopholes all lined up just in case."

Loki's eyebrow shot up at the Midgardian's blasé attitude towards ambiguities and using them for his own gain, and mentally revised his assumption that Janie was honorable in the conventional sense.

Janie gestured to the unoccupied half of the couch invitingly. "You can come sit if you want to. Doorways aren't really the most comfortable things in the world."

Since Loki couldn't really come up with a good reason not to, he stepped over the debris and sat down on the cushions. It was only slightly better than the doorway.

Janie went back to whatever he had been doing before Loki had woken up.

After a couple of minutes of staring at the wall and contemplating his lot in life, Loki started to search for something to do. He leaned over and snatched up one of the papers littering the floor in hopes that it could provide some sort of entertainment.

It was a large illustration of the human skeleton, littered with random remarks and labels. The labels were much neater and for specific bones, while the remarks were messily scrawled, almost illegible, and mostly involved several structures.

For example, the bones that made up the shoulders were circled and paired with ' _Enlarged in case of physically powered flight (Wings, screaming, etc.), abnormal strength, smaller with increased speed/agility, flexibility, mentally powered flight (Telekinesis, repulsion, etc.).'_

Intrigued, Loki continued to read the various comments scrawled across the poster, which mostly focused on the differences caused by what Loki could only assume were different 'powers' Midgardians possessed. There were speculations of how controlling and emitting various elements affected bone growth and density, as well as how being able to mentally manipulate objects affected the human frame.

The notes were so numerous they had spilled onto the back of the page, and after Loki finished it he noticed there were several other diagrams exactly like the one he held strewn across the floor. Presumably, they each had different observations about the human body.

While Loki had been pouring over the picture, Janie had been staring off into the middle distance and muttering under his breath, occasionally pausing and tapping different parts of his body.

As Loki moved to pick up the next closest paper, because it was actually kind of _fascinating_ , Janie suddenly asked, "What's the shoulder bone?"

"Excuse me?" Loki looked up from where he had been reaching, still holding onto his original.

"You've got a diagram, so what's the shoulder bone?" Janie began to grasp the air with his hands, as if he were trying to grab an idea. "It starts with an 's' and sounds sort of like scalpel, but I can't remember its real name."

Loki stared incredulously at Janie, and then decided to indulge him for a moment. It wasn't as if he had anything better to do. He glanced at the sheet briefly, "The scapula."

"Dang it!" Janie thumped the arm of the couch in irritation, "Cranium, orbital cavity, nasal cavity, mandible, cervical vertebrae, clavicle, _scapula_ , stern-"

" _What_ are you doing?"

"Um. I'm studying for a test on Wednesday in my anatomy class. It's kind of a big deal, so if you don't mind I'm going to keep going. Manubrium sterni, body of the sternum, xiphoid process, ribs, humerus, ulna, radula, thoracic vertebrae, carpals, metac-"

"I do, in fact, mind. By the terms of our agreement, you must stop immediately." Sending a glare Janie's way, Loki settled back with a newly acquired poster and began to read. This one was about the effects of various powers on the different parts of the human spine.

"I really don't have to stop, actually. That is filed squarely under 'unfair request,' but since I've been studying for eight hours or so I guess I could take a break." He leaned forwards to see what Loki was looking at, and then drew back in confusion. "What are _you_ doing?"

His first reaction was to deny everything, but after a second of contemplation he realized Janie wasn't being condescending in the slightest. In fact, he could almost hear the silent _Nobody reads that. Nobody cares._

That was a sentiment Loki could fully understand.

Wonderful, he was empathizing with a Midgardian of all things. Next thing he knew he would be having meaningful conversations with cats and being nice to Thor.

Through all of Loki's internal stressing, Janie sat on the other end of the couch and stared patiently at him, waiting for an answer.

Loki eventually decided he could spare a little bit of truth for him, "I was bored," but not too much, "But this is not rectifying that as I hoped it would."

"Well yeah, it's not really for the casual reader. You're doing pretty well though, most people's eyes glaze over after five minutes. And then they rally the scientific community to mob me." He turned away slightly; pretending to look at the wallpaper and dismissing the conversation.

Did he think Loki was going to rally scientists as well? He supposed after as many rejections as Janie seemed to have had, he would have been leery of sharing.

Instead of trying to debase Janie's observations, which would have been fun but counterproductive to fulfilling his curiosity, he asked, "Midgardians can fly?"

Perking up instantly, Janie twisted towards Loki again and tried to explain. "Yes and no. There are some people born with abilities that're called mutants, and they can do a whole bunch of stuff. Sometimes that lets them fly, but mostly it's something else, like controlling fire or reading people's minds."

"Are they powerful?" This was good information to have if he was going to try to take over Midgard. That was all.

"Sometimes. It really depends on the person. I mean, some psychics can sense people's minds around the world and make entire buildings float without breaking a sweat, and some can barely throw a Frisbee at ten paces. Most are somewhere in the middle though."

"How many mutants are there?"

"That really depends on where you are and what you count as mutant. I'm pretty sure about half of New York is made of them, but I think maybe ten percent of the general population has some sort of power going on."

While they had been talking, Janie had shifted to face Loki entirely, pulling his legs up onto the couch, and Loki actually turned to participate in the conversation.

"What counts as a mutant?"

"Well, I think it's anyone with out-of-the-ordinary abilities, like enhanced reflexes and strength or the ability to breathe fire or something. Mostly everyone else thinks only the people with abilities way out of the ordinary count. Like the ability to grow spikes that fly off of when you sneeze."

Now for the question that had been bothering Loki since he had picked up the diagram, "Why do you know so much about these people?"

"They're interesting. Not many things are, you know? So when something comes along that grabs my attention like this, I try to follow up on it."

Loki almost, _almost_ took the explanation at face value. A faint niggle at the back of his mind urged him to reconsider.

The amount of detail he had seen in Janie's notes was absolutely incredible. So incredible he sincerely doubted just research could possibly have provided as much information as Janie would have liked Loki to believe.

"We have already discussed my feelings about you lying to me." Loki scowled at Janie, who was looking much less intimidated than he would have liked.

Janie rested his elbows on his knees and laced his fingers together. "But it's so fun."

Instead of rising to the bait as he really wanted to Loki simply answered, "It will become much less fun if you force me to extract the answer."

"Alright, no need to get all threatening on me. That's private is all, and it _is_ interesting, so it wasn't really a lie. Just an omission of truth." He lounged back onto the arm of the couch and watched as Loki worked through the urge to punch him.

Finally getting ahold of himself, Loki ground out, "A lie is a lie. Now answer my question."

"Nowhere in our agreement does it say I have to answer your questions. I just have to stop doing irritating things."

"Avoiding my questions is irritating. So stop it and answer."

"Hmm…Tell you what. I'll answer a question as truthfully as I can if you answer it truthfully too. I feel like the flow of information is a little one-sided here."

He looked expectantly at Loki, who was mentally debating the pros and cons of such an agreement. On one hand, it would be much less time consuming than forcing an answer out of the Midgardian, while on the other hand he was expected to truthfully interact with said Midgardian in return. He never liked giving away information, but he really enjoyed receiving it. All he had to do was ask questions he didn't mind answering, or he couldn't answer, and he would be alright. It was like a game.

Mentally shrugging, he decided to agree. What would the Midgardian do with any information he gained anyway? Once his magic returned properly, he could destroy him if he heard anything Loki felt was dangerous. "Agreed. Now answer."

"I grew up around them." He was apparently going to give the barest details in response to Loki's questions. That was alright, Loki needed something to do anyway.

"That question isn't applicable to me in the slightest, so I shall ask my next one." He glanced at Janie to make sure he agreed, no need to accidentally breach the contract. Janie just shrugged good-naturedly and gestured for him to go on.

"Do you possess 'powers' as well? And what are they if so?"

Janie scoffed a touch bitterly, "Nope. No powers here. I'm completely normal by my family's standards. How about you?"

"To put it simply, I possess magic." If the Midgardian wasn't going to be forthcoming, Loki saw no reason to detail his responses.

"What kind?"

"Why do you want to know?" It wasn't as if Janie could really do anything with the information, but still…

With a vague wave of his hand Janie explained, "It's always good to know what kind of spells could be chucked at your head if you say the wrong thing."

Fair enough. "Some people have deemed it 'all-purpose' magic. If I need it to do something, it does it."

"Handy that. So no incantations, hand motions, or spell circles? Just a purpose and will-power?"

"Essentially." It was more complex than that, but he didn't feel like explaining. "I am one of the most powerful mages in all of the nine realms," Loki boasted.

That wasn't quite true, but he was one of the most effective ones so he thought that could at least put him in the running.

"Uh- _huh_." Janie looked as if he doubted that just a bit. "Anyway, next question?"

Shaking off Janie's disbelief as simple Midgardian ignorance, Loki continued his questions with "Who do you know that is mutant? You must have known at least some personally."

"That's easy." Janie started ticking off on his fingers, "My mom, my dad, my older brother, and pretty much all of my brother's friends are mutants. He has lots of friends. We also took in a couple of foster kids that were mutant, but I didn't know them as well."

"You had no abilities to speak of in a literal family of mutants?" Loki taunted. Maybe Janie's dismissal of his abilities had affected him more than he had originally thought.

Instead of bristling at Loki's comment, like most people would have, Janie nodded enthusiastically. "Oh _yeah_ , real fun let me tell you. They wouldn't even look at me unless they needed something, and then instead of just asking like normal people, they tried to threaten me into helping them _all the time_."

"For what sort of thing?" He thought he was the only one with that kind of problem.

"Anything really. It ranged from _'I'm sneaking out tonight, don't tell anyone Janie'_ to _'My friend fell down a well Janie, get him back up and fix him or I'll turn your spine into a bowtie.'_ On the bright side, I was never bored."

He looked shrewdly at Loki, "How about you?"

"What makes you think I ever had that problem?" Apparently this Midgardian was more insightful than Loki had been giving him credit for.

"Norse mythology has two ways to fix a problem. One: blame Loki and make him fix it, and two: find Loki and make him fix it. Every now and then you'd actually do something, but you were generally the go-to-guy for fixing stuff that wasn't really your problem."

That…actually made sense. It was more accurate that Loki would have liked to admit at the very least, and it explained quite a lot of incidences. Still, he had his pride to think about. "No one comes to me for anything unless the situation is dire, and only as a last resort. They know that threatening me will end badly on their part, and try to avoid doing so at all costs."

Janie grinned at him and shrugged, "Not all of us can be big scary Norse Gods or my brother. Next question? Or are you done?"

"Not nearly. This is the most entertainment I've had since crashing down onto this pitiful planet." He peered contemplatively at the clutter. Speaking of brothers…"What is your brother like?"

Loki profoundly regretted the question after it was out of his mouth, but it was too late to turn back now. Maybe he was being too careless around the Midgardian.

"He's tall." Apparently that was all Janie was going to give on the subject. "Yours?"

If that was the way he wanted to play, then Loki was game. "Mine was also tall. Anything else you care to share?"

Janie let Loki's usage of past tense slide. Wrinkling his nose, he added, " _Everyone_ likes him."

That was something Loki could understand. "Unfortunately, it was the same with him."

"I don't even know _why_ everyone wanted to be friends with him all of the time. He used to be a real jerk, but people would still randomly come up to say hi." He scowled at the black box, "I mean, he would never have met these people before, and they'd still know his name, his favorite color, and his usual hangout. It was like the whole world was stalking him and he was _okay_ with it."

"That is generally what happens with royalty, but I suppose peasantry doesn't usually have that problem. It was expected that everyone notice my brother, after all he was next in line to the throne," Loki finished with a disgusted sneer.

After a moment spent processing Janie asked, "So you're royalty?"

Loki nodded in affirmation. He wasn't going to give that up quite yet.

"That actually explains a lot. No wonder you're so bossy." Janie started to tap out a random rhythm on the arm of the couch and waited for Loki's reply.

Squashing down the urge to violently deal with the insult, Loki suddenly realized the Midgardian was _teasing_ him. Him of all people. He didn't know whether to be impressed by Janie's bravery or amused by his stupidity. Having nothing better to do, he decided to be amused and play along. "It's not being 'bossy' when the one in charge is royalty."

"Oh? What's it called then? Directing the peasantry?"

"No." He studiously examined his fingernails, "It's being _assertive_. Good peasantry doesn't need to be directed anyways."

A startled laugh made its way out of Janie, and after he regained his composure he said, "You know what I never understood about royals? The whole kerfuffle about successions and who's first in line, second in line, blah-de-blah. Why do people fight over that? Why would anyone want to be king?"

Midgardians were apparently much less ambitions than Loki had originally though. No wonder they never seemed to accomplish anything of worth. He straightened up and leveled a disgusted look at Janie, "Why wouldn't you want to be in charge of every person? Decide who lives and dies? That kind of power gives a person an incredible feeling. People would die for the chance to rule for just one day, let alone be king, and you think it's not important?"

Throughout Loki's rant Janie had been carefully assessing him, poised to run, and when Loki had finished he held his hands up and tried to look as non-threatening as possible. "Hey now, I never said being king isn't important. That was all you. Being the head of something big has just never been on my list of top ten things to do."

Loki sneered at Janie and started to reply, when Janie flapped a hand at him. "I'm not done, I'm not done."

He paused and collected his thoughts. "Power is something people always want, and I get that. It's a real ego boost to have absolute control. I just think being the head honcho, the big shot, in charge, whatever you want to call it, isn't all it's cracked up to be."

It took a moment as Loki dug through the nonsense in the sentence, but he eventually got the message. He blinked as he tried to make sense of Janie's reasoning. "Do tell."

"The king _is_ in charge, but everyone knows him. He counts on his reputation more often than not, and everyone is always trying to manipulate him or suck up to him for stuff. It sounds _exhausting_."

"Those may be issues on Midgard where the kings are weak, but Asgardian kings have no such problems." Well, they did, but the attempts never really worked out for the transgressors. Odin was terrifying enough to hold him own in court.

"I never said they _worked out_ , I just said it'd be a pain to have to fend everyone off. I'd rather be the second-in-command or a trusted advisor. That way I could still have lots of power and affluence going on, and I wouldn't have to deal with as much crap as the king would have to." Janie finished with a flourish of his hand, apparently thinking the conversation was done and he had made his point.

He was wrong. Loki never went without the last word if he could help it.

"Seconds still have to answer to the king, and that counteracts the power they receive. Nobody wants to be second to anyone, much less an oaf pretending to be in charge." Loki may have been breaking slightly from the hypothetical scenario Janie had spun, but it was still a good point. Nothing to do with his personal experience at all.

"Only if you're doing it wrong. If you do it right the king should depend on _you_ for his power and stability, which essentially puts you in charge without having to deal with everyone else. Seems like a better deal to me, especially if the guy is an idiot."

So maybe that _had_ been Loki's plan after he had made sure Thor was a little less belligerent, but only for the good of Asgard. No one would have benefited from a reign directed solely by that moron. He glanced at Janie, "You're devious, aren't you?"

Janie just smiled beatifically at him.


	6. Taradiddle

So here's the last bit of my update spree, because I felt guilty about ignoring this for the last month. I'll try to be more consistent.

* * *

After a few minutes of both of them staring into nothing Janie broke the silence by asking, "Do you have any more burning questions, or are we done? Because if we're done, I vote we play a card game."

Loki leaned back into the couch again, arms crossed, and mentally leafed through what he wanted to know. There was nothing that couldn't be answered later, and he didn't feel like accidentally starting up another ideological discussion. That had hit a little too close to home for Loki's liking.

On the other hand, why did the Midgardian think he actually had a vote about what they did? Admittedly reading didn't sound so appealing anymore and he really didn't have anything better to do, but he couldn't go around just doing what Midgardians suggested on a whim.

It was decided then.

"What kind of games do you know how to play?" He looked challengingly at Janie. If he was going to go so low as to play games with a Midgardian, he was going to _pick_ the game.

An eyebrow shot up on Janie's forehead, and then apparently something occurred to him. Muttering what sounded suspiciously like 'control freak' under his breath, he slung his arm over the back of the couch and then began to list, "We could play Go Fish, Hearts, Old Maid, German Whist, I guess we could do Rage, Gin Rummy, Hola, War, Spit, James Bond, Egyptian Rat Slap, Cheat, maybe Spoons, and Santase. Pick one, I've got more."

Decisions, decisions. He might as well start with something that sounded simple. "How do you play Cheat?"

"It's pretty easy," Janie stood and walked back to the closet where the lantern had come from, "But first you need to see the cards, or it won't make any sense."

He eventually came back with a small pack of what were presumably cards held in his left hand, the right still holding a blanket over his shoulders. It wasn't that cold, was it?

"We should probably play this on the table. The couch isn't big enough for a card game _and_ both of us." With that declaration, Janie turned on his heel and settled at the rickety kitchen table, which was still well lit but colder due to being closer to the window.

"I doubt that pathetic excuse for a table could hold up to anything." But Loki sullenly slunk his way to the table and sat down anyway. He ended up in the chair closest to the snowed-out window; it was less likely to give out under his weight than the other two.

Janie perused through the various cards, picking out a card here and there, until he had thirteen cards between them. He started at the end of the line with a card with a single black symbol in the center, "This doesn't matter for this game, but if you play other games it's important. There are fifty-two cards in a deck and four suits make up the fifty-two cards. Each suit has thirteen cards. This," he tapped the card, "Is a club. Each club has this little shape on it."

Leaning forwards slightly, Loki regarded the shape. It was very vaguely club shaped, he supposed, but otherwise looked like some kind of plant.

While Loki had been looking at that, Janie had moved on. "This is a heart," he tapped on the next card down the line, "And it always has a little heart on it, so it's easy to remember."

That was debatable. It only loosely resembled a real heart, but Loki admitted artistic license might have been taken. Real hearts would have been harder to depict after all.

He moved onto the next card. "This black shape means it's a spade," and then the next, "and this red shape is a diamond."

Both of them actually looked like they claimed to be. That was a relief.

Steepling his fingers in front of him on the table, Janie launched into the rest of his explanation. "Each card is an ace, one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten, jack, queen, or king. The number cards have their number in the corner. Jacks have a 'J', queens have a 'Q', kings have a 'K', and aces have an 'A' in the corners. Cards with faces on them are face cards; cards with numbers are number cards. We clear?"

Digesting the information, Loki nodded and gestured for Janie to actually get onto the rules of 'Cheat'.

"Alright. Cheat is an easy game to start with, no crazy rules or anything. Basically, the deck is passed out equally to each player, so I get twenty-three and so do you." As Janie was explaining he shuffled the cards and fanned them out. "Pick six, but don't look at them. Just put them down over on the side of the table." After Loki had done so, barely restraining his urge to peek, Janie slid him his cards.

"Don't let me see them," He warned. "Now what happens is because I dealt, you get to play the first round. We ascend up the card values, ace, one, two, three, et cetera each turn. So you would play an ace, or however many aces you want to get out of your hand face down on the table and tell me what you played."

"That doesn't sound particularly riveting." Loki was seriously reconsidering his decision.

"I'm still not done. If that was the whole game it'd be boring." Janie scooped up his cards and neatly fanned them out in such a way that Loki couldn't see them. Loki covertly copied him.

"Continue then," Loki said distractedly. It was harder to hold cards than it looked.

"I was going to, but you keep interrupting me. Anyway, the goal is to get rid of all of your cards before the other person does. You have to play on each turn, no passing." He stopped talking and watched Loki, waiting for him to figure something out.

There was one issue with the rules Loki could see. "What if you don't have the card that needs to be played?" If you played them facedown, wouldn't it be incredibly easy to cheat? How dull.

" _That_ is what makes this a fun game. If you don't have the card you need, like if you don't have any aces in your hand right now, you'd pick a card you want to get rid of, like a two or something, and play that but tell _me_ it's an ace."

That was surprising. "So the entire point of the game is to cheat?"

"It's called 'Cheat', what were you expecting? And that's not the only point. If you put down a two instead of an ace, I could call it out by saying 'Cheat', at which point you would have to take all of the cards we had put down by then. So the purpose is to cheat and not get caught while catching other people."

Well, that was definitely more interesting than Loki had thought it would be. "How do you tell if someone is cheating?" There might be some sort of bizarre rule involving Midgardian deceit. It was always nice to check.

"How do you usually figure it out? You either watch the person for tells, or since there are two of us, try to logic you're way to victory. Since I removed six random cards, it's harder to do that."

"Couldn't your opponent just keep accusing you of cheating until he got it right?" Loki started looking through his cards, mentally naming them to make sure he could properly identify them. Handily enough, the number cards had the same number of symbols as the card number, which was good because Loki wasn't as familiar with Midgardian number systems as he would have people to believe.

"No. If the accuser is wrong, then they have to take the deck on the table and put it in their hand. It's sort of a punishment/reward deal." Janie was actually ordering his cards in some way, before looking at Loki and probably deciding giving the God of Lies a pattern to work out wouldn't really help him lie to Loki's face.

He shuffled his small deck, grabbed the extra six cards and relocated them to the counter behind him, and refanned his cards. "Whenever you're ready."

* * *

Three games of Cheat later, Loki grudgingly started to admit Janie was a spectacular cheater and liar.

Loki had won all three games of Cheat, but it had been harder than he had been expecting. Janie had figured out what Loki was using as physical tells early on and promptly started to randomly do them to throw Loki off. It had been more successful than Loki would care to admit.

At first Loki assumed when Janie paused for a long while over his cards, he had nothing and was picking out a fake card. He was right the first time, but the second time Janie had been telling the truth. Then he noticed Janie would start tapping the table whenever he was about to put down fake cards. Both tells started out as correct, but Janie eventually just started to do them to throw Loki off so he would have to pick the cards up instead.

Janie only called his cheats a handful of times. Loki took that as a testament to his excellent lying abilities.

Eventually, Loki had resorted to the 'logic approach'. He had an excellent memory, and he could usually remember if he had played all four of a certain card. It was made marginally harder because he didn't know which six cards had been taken out, but he prevailed in the end.

Afterwards, they had briefly tried James Bond, but both of them found it to be too tedious.

The real trouble started when Janie suggested they play Go Fish.

It started out innocently enough. The rules were easy, and both of them were immersed after a few minutes of gameplay. Loki thought he would have no problems winning; after all it was just guesswork, logic, and the ability to recall information.

He was wrong.

Somehow, Janie had managed to win so completely Loki only had two matches to his eleven. Loki, naturally, had demanded a rematch. He managed to get one more match than he had before.

The third time around, Loki may have started to cheat.

When they started the fourth match, Janie started to cheat back.

Unbeknownst to Loki, the window next to him had the reflection of all of his cards. Janie had been politely ignoring it until Loki had started lying about what was in his hand.

Of course, that was only the tip of the iceberg.

After a good ten minutes of useless card exchange, Loki realized Janie was, in fact, lying to his face about his cards. This hadn't occurred to him before because he figured he could have caught any pathetic attempts at cheating the Midgardian tried. Apparently he had been wrong about that too.

If nothing else, Janie was an excellent cheater. Loki had assumed he wouldn't be, because technically in Cheat cheating is one of the rules, and Janie had already displayed his tendency to follow and make rules. In Loki's experience, people who followed rules and deals religiously weren't particularly good at breaking them. Thor, for example, could not cheat to save his life.

In response to his epiphany, Loki started to use a little bit of magic to amplify his cheating abilities. His magic was still not up to the level he would have liked or he would have left by now, but he had enough to pull off simple switching charms with the deck and his hand. He also altered his reflection's cards slightly after he figured out where Janie was looking during his turn.

It was very effective, and for a while Loki had a lead over Janie. Then Janie started to pull some more of his own tricks out of the bag.

At first Loki didn't notice Janie was switching his own cards with the cards in the deck as well. He really had to stop underestimating the Midgardian. It caused all sorts of problems when he did.

Loki suspected something was going on, but he only saw it when he watched Janie's hand very carefully as he drew his next card. He still almost missed it.

Each time Janie went in for a card another one would appear on the top of the pile, presumably from Janie's own hand. So _that_ was how he knew the cards in Loki's hand without being able to see the real ones. But how was he doing it?

The next time Janie went for a card, Loki thought he had puzzled out the answer.

Janie was reaching for the deck with his hand palm down and fingers together in order to hide a card from his hand. Upon reaching the deck, he would execute a very smooth sleight of hand that ended with the card from his hand on the deck, and the card from the deck in his hand in less than a second. Then he would hold his card upright to see what it was, and continue playing.

It was actually a fairly impressive maneuver, for a _Midgardian_.

After his discovery, Loki started to swap out the cards he drew with random cards in the deck to avoid having all of Janie's cards. It threw Janie off for a while, but eventually he regained his lead.

For the life of him, Loki could not decide how Janie was cheating now. Was his reflection illusion faltering? Was Janie pulling another card switch without Loki noticing? Was he blatantly lying about what was in his hand?

He covertly turned to check his reflection. No, still sound.

For the next few turns, Loki carefully watched Janie. He wasn't doing anything beyond the deck switch.

He _was_ blatantly lying about his hand. Loki was too, so he let it slide. That wasn't the reason for Janie's sudden success anyway.

Loki steamed as Janie began to accumulate all of the matches. He now had five to Loki's three, which gave him a worrying lead Loki wasn't sure he could overcome. Staring moodily at his cards, Loki idly wondered when the corners had become so damaged.

Wait.

 _That_ was how Janie was figuring out his cards? He was marking them with a pattern of scuffs and bends which allowed him to see which card it was from the back. A quick glance at the deck revealed they were mostly tampered with as well. How had he gotten the cards in the deck?

The answer presented it to himself almost immediately, and he felt like an idiot. He had been played by a Midgardian. Janie had figured out he was switching his cards with the deck at random, and started to alter his cards, which eventually made their way to Loki, which were put back in the deck. He had managed to give Janie a way to mark all of the cards.

Barely restraining himself from doing something that might break their contract, like stabbing Janie with a playing card, Loki considered his options.

Option number one: decipher Janie's code and use it against him. That had a delicious ring of irony to it.

Option number two: return all of the cards to their original state, thus leaving Janie back at square one and unable to tell what was in Loki's hand.

After a moment of consideration, Loki decided on option one. Why throw away such an elegant setup if he could use it for his own purposes?

It never once crossed his mind that he was perhaps taking the game a _touch_ too seriously.

Five minutes later, Loki discovered there was no pattern to speak of. Each card was marked in its own specific and totally unrelated way. Loki was expecting something along the lines of 'one crease is a club, and two scuffs are a two'; instead it seemed Janie had randomly made his marks and just remembered which card was which. Maybe he was smarter than Loki had given him credit for if he could recall all of that.

That left him with the choice of tediously memorizing all of the marks, a process that would probably take longer than finishing the game would, _or_ he could just carry out option two.

Option two it was. With a flick of a finger, Loki returned all of the cards to their former glory and sent Janie a smirk.

Janie just scowled at him from across the table.

Good to know he knew what was going on unlike some of the people Loki had duped over the years.

At that point there were only four more matches available, with Loki in possession of four and Janie having five.

With all of his cheating thwarted, Loki expected Janie would be an easy opponent to beat. After all, all of his effort had been nullified and Loki was still gleefully breaking the rules. Once again he was proved to have thought wrong.

He _really_ needed to stop underestimating Janie.

Claiming he needed a bathroom break, Janie shoved his cards into a jacket pocket and scampered down the hall. Loki took the moment to look at all of the cards left on the table, because why not?

There were no cards left on the table. Janie had snatched them while he was talking to Loki. When he got back Loki was going to cut all of his fingers off. That way he would have to _stop doing that_.

The sound of running water heralded Janie's return. Hands in pockets, he cheerfully traipsed down the hallway and to the kitchen table. When he arrived he replaced the meager deck on the table and sat back down, jauntily ignoring Loki's pointed death glare all the while.

Fanning out his cards again, Janie chirped, "Shall we?"

Instead of properly answering Loki asked, "Do you have any fours?"

And thus the game continued. Janie managed to keep up with Loki until there were only two matches left. Loki was only behind by one, and could practically taste victory. The one thing worrying him was Janie's ability to guess his cards accurately with no apparent outside help.

He had checked all of the cards again, but they were all in perfect condition. He had looked at his illusion on the window, but that was holding strong. He had been carefully watching Janie's hands whenever they strayed too close to the tabletop, but since the deck had just barely run out there was nothing that could have been happening there.

The only thing remotely suspicious was the small rock he was absentmindedly fiddling with in his left hand. It hadn't been there before, Loki was sure of it. Was it some kind of luck charm?

It didn't really matter what it was because both of them only had two options to pick from anyway. No cheating was necessary.

Five minutes later Janie had won despite all of Loki's efforts.


	7. Exaggeration

AN: Hi there. The whole constant updates thing really didn't work out, did it? I guess I won't make any promises about future chapters, but I've got too much sunk into this story to just abandon it, so they'll eventually happen.

Only Janie is mine, the rest I've stolen and horribly mangled for my own personal entertainment. Enjoy.

* * *

Instead of dismembering Janie like Loki _really_ wanted to for looking that smug, he simply reached across the table and latched onto Janie's left wrist. Target acquired, he turned it over with more force than was strictly necessary and carelessly peeled back fingers to reveal a fairly ordinary looking stone.

Janie complied easily with what Loki wanted and had propped his chin up with his unoccupied hand, detachedly appraising the pinned limb on the table. He looked oddly unconcerned that a slightly unhinged (Loki could admit it) Norse god had him trapped.

With one hand still keeping hold of Janie, Loki picked up the stone and examined it. A dull grey color, it was unremarkable aside for the hole worn through its center. The hole looked to be a completely natural occurrence. The sides of the opening seemed to have been worn down instead of drilled or carved, and the entire rock was almost unnaturally smooth.

"What is this?" Loki knew Janie had been cheating with it, he just couldn't see how.

Janie blinked in surprise, "You don't know?"

Casting a warning glance at Janie for his tone, Loki sarcastically said, "Would I have asked if I knew what it was?"

Vaguely shrugging, Janie attempted to retrieve his arm. Loki made it apparent he wasn't going to let him go until he got an answer.

Bemusedly looking at Loki, Janie responded, "Sorry, I just thought you'd know what it was, being one of the most powerful mages in the universe and all."

Seeing Loki's intent to break his wrist if he didn't stop mocking him, Janie cheerfully continued, "It's a Seeing Stone."

"What does it do?" Loki had a guess, but it was nice to know.

"It helps you see things." His tone made it clear how stupid of a question that was. Loki tightened his grip in response, making the bones in Janie's arm creak ominously. Janie didn't even blink.

"I know that," Loki snapped, "But what sort of things?"

Did it help the wielder see through objects to the other side? Did it help someone see into the minds of their opponents? Janie had better not have been prying into Loki's head. If he had been, his arm was going to be more than just broken. They would have to create another word in their ridiculous Midgardian language to describe exactly what was going to happen to Janie.

Apparently sensing Loki's murderous intent from across the table, Janie decided he should probably just answer the question. "It helps you see through illusions. I thought everyone knew that. It's like witchcraft 101."

Intrigued despite himself, Loki glanced at the window and cast a minor illusion at it. According to the window, he wasn't in his Asgardian wear but instead a rather dapper black suit with a green scarf.

"Very nice," Janie commented.

Ignoring him with the practiced ease that could only come from living with a complete idiot for over one thousand years, Loki studied the Seeing Stone in an effort to discover how it was activated. Was there an incantation? Janie had mentioned witchcraft, and to his understanding witches were primarily incantation based.

He released Janie's wrist in order to look at the stone more thoroughly. Gingerly leaning back into his chair, he tried to pinpoint what kind of magic it was powered by.

Janie merrily settled back into his chair to watch Loki try to puzzle out his little toy.

According to the meager magic he could scrape up it was a completely ordinary rock. The stone wasn't magic in the slightest, but something close to it was. Curiously, he checked the gap instead of the stone around it.

It had the feeling of an old, powerful magic. Nothing remotely hostile or dangerous about it like most old magics had, just a feeling of _existence_. Of being there. A fact of life, like air.

It wasn't activated because it was always on, so the user had to physically use it somehow in order to see results.

Maybe it was worn as a ring?

Briefly slipping it onto his smallest finger under the table, Loki glanced at his reflection. His suited self stared back irritably as the effort proved to be in vain.

What else could…Oh.

It was a _Seeing_ Stone. He just had to look through it.

Glancing at Janie, who was looking entirely too pleased with himself again for reasons unknown, Loki decided to try it out despite the fact that he would probably look like an idiot staring through a rock.

He held it up to his eye, and everything immediately gained a new sort of vibrancy to it. The white of the snow looked whiter, the light shining into the kitchen brightened, and the apartment just looked more _alive_. He would have sworn under oath the marks on the table had started to weave and dance around their tabletop home.

His shock apparently showed, because Janie took that moment to pipe up, "It's a shocker, isn't it? I mean, one minute everything looks all tired and drab and the next the entire place looks about ready to burst into song."

Loki wouldn't have gone _that_ far with the simile, but that was essentially the gist of it. Remembering his purpose again, he regarded his reflection. There wasn't even a hint of the outfit he had conjured up for his illusion, just him looking ridiculous with a stone pressed against his eye and staring deeply into a snow-covered window.

He was also fully Asgardian, oddly enough. Was it not powerful enough to cut through such a thick illusion?

Usually he would have stopped at that, but the lure of knowledge was too much to resist. What else looked different through the lens of the Seeing Stone?

Turning to Janie, he was startled slightly by the difference it made.

Janie almost looked normal. Almost. His face was slightly more angular, and he looked even smaller than Loki had been seeing him as, but with all of the perspective alterations those sorts of changes were to be expected. There was something else slightly off about him Loki couldn't quite pinpoint at first. A few moments of staring later, it occurred to him. _His eyes._

They weren't a different color, or in possession of slitted pupils, or even slightly bigger or smaller than usual. They were just deeper. _Things_ danced around in his eyes. Things that made him look older and younger, smarter and duller, happier and sadder at the same time. Made him look wild. Made him look not quite human. There was also a necklace of some sort glinting from beneath his shirt. What-

"You alright?" Janie's voice snapped him out of his thoughts, "I'm kinda freaky through the Seeing Stone. Wouldn't want to traumatize you or anything."

Shaking off excess reverie, Loki lowered the Seeing Stone and started on the long list of questions he had accumulated. "Where did it come from?"

"A cave somewhere in Ohio."

"Who's was it?" They must have been powerful to have created such an item.

Janie stared at him in confusion for a moment, and then his face cleared. "Oh! You think someone made it?"

"Where else would it have come from? Magical artifacts don't just appear." Loki leaned forwards slightly and rested his elbows on the table. At least he'd never heard of such a phenomenon.

"Seeing Stones are naturally occurring. Magic has nothing to do with their making." He raised a hand to stop Loki's next question. "They're magical because nature makes them that way."

Loki had never heard of such a thing. Magic was always directed by something to create something. It didn't just spring up wherever it decided to. Yggdrasil was the only thing that had ever come out of nothing, and it was its own entity. It generated its own magic and growth, whereas the formation of Seeing Stones was just random magical manifestation. The rocks weren't alive.

In response to Loki's incredulous stare Janie just threw up his hands and defensively said, "Magic is weird, okay?"

Grudgingly accepting the answer for the time being, Loki moved on. "Why does it change everything so drastically?" Once again, he had an idea, but it was probably a good idea to get an opinion from someone who had experience with the unorthodox magic.

"Because it shows people what things actually are?" Before Loki could tell him to elaborate, he continued almost chirpily, "Brains don't show people how things really are most of the time. I figure everything gets brighter because your brain automatically turns down the colors. Can you imagine everything being that intense all the time? It'd be painful after a while. The Seeing Stone just fixes your perception of the world to match reality."

That had been what Loki was thinking, but it was still interesting to hear it come from Janie. Now that he was looking for it, he could see how Janie's personality made him seem bigger than he actually was. The utterly spasmodic aspect of it made him seem more humorous and less threatening as well, which he supposed made him look softer around the edges.

The eyes were different now too. Loki had just assumed there was nothing in Janie's head, and so he saw nothing. Now, along with the usual range of emotions, he seemed to be internally grinning the grin of someone who knew a juicy secret.

 _I know something you don't know_.

It wasn't quite as radical as the change had been through the Seeing Stone, but now Loki knew there was something a bit off about his host. Nobody sane had eyes like that.

Insanity actually would explain quite a lot about Janie. What sort of person is threatened within an inch of their life and then offers their assailant a bowl of Cheerios?

Cutting through Loki's musings once again, Janie said, "Speaking of magic, how's yours? I think it should be back to normal by now."

Loki bristled slightly at that. He _knew_ his power should have been properly back by now, it didn't take much to regenerate magic, and if he reached for it he could feel it wisping around him. Unfortunately, it was stubbornly refusing to settle down and become usable. Trying to access it was like trying to drink water vapor.

"That bad, huh?" Janie considered him for a moment. He opened his mouth to continue, but before he could speak the entire apartment seemed to jump.

"What in h-" It jumped again. And again.

The 'jumps' got closer and closer together until it felt like someone had picked up the apartment and was shaking it. Janie was shaken right out of his chair and grabbed onto the counter for balance, while Loki had managed to stay seated with a little bit of magic and the fact that he probably weighed twice what Janie did.

After one particularly large crash from outside, the fan blade the lantern was hanging from had apparently had enough. Janie saw it bounce worryingly and tried to make it stop with various creative curses and threats, but to no avail. It snapped from the rest of the fan and sent the lantern crashing down, which snuffed it out almost immediately.

This left Janie and Loki in near total darkness. Light sluggishly shone from the stopped up window, but not nearly enough to properly see anything.

Fortunately, the shaking had wound down to more of a mild vibration, so they could at least stand without a problem.

"Well that's just _dandy_ ," Janie drawled. Loki could barely see his own hand in front of his face, let alone Janie, so he just guessed he was in the kitchen somewhere.

Loki quietly tried to decide if using some of his magic to conjure up a light would be worth it or if he should just wait and see what else the Midgardian had up his sleeve. The din outside had sounded suspiciously like a large _thing_ getting into a brawl, and the only large creature that thrived in the cold he knew of was a frost giant. If he used his magic more than he already had, someone might sense it and come to investigate. Maybe they had picked up his signature already while he had been playing cards, and that was why one had come closer to their position.

He presumed the giants weren't feeling particularly charitable towards him at the moment, being the killer of their king and all, and he was in no shape to fight off hordes of angry frost giants in the middle of a blizzard.

Were they looking for him or was it a coincidence? Were they attacking this Midgardian city?

It would be just his luck to be stuck in a place besieged by frost giants without the ability to properly defend himself.

Whilst he was brooding, Janie had gone out to check on the lantern. He found nothing broken except for the mantle, which was both good and bad. Good because there wasn't pieces of glass everywhere in the dark, and bad because he didn't have another mantle.

Janie trudged back into the kitchen. He started to feel along the counter in an effort to find something. Eventually he found whatever he had been looking for with an ' _Aha!'_ and clicked what Loki assumed to be a switch of some sort.

Nothing happened.

" _Drat_. I forgot the battery was out." He smacked whatever it was against the counter, and then sighed in defeat.

Once again disregarding Loki, he began to mutter, "I could…no those need moonlight. Or maybe…nope, that needs total darkness. That one needs terror, that one only works in July, and I'm out of batteries."

He shuffled his way to a chair and gingerly sat down. "I hope you're not afraid of the dark, 'cause we're stuck like this until the power kicks back on."

Loki was surprised Janie hadn't asked for a magical fix. He seemed smart enough to have realized Loki could have provided some light.

Now he wanted to know why he hadn't been asked. Did the Midgardian think he was too weak to do it? He certainly wasn't. The only problem would be the size of the light he could sustain in his condition and the fact that he might accidentally summon a squad of frost giants.

Deciding to offer but not go through with it, Loki responded, "If it bothers you that much I could provide something."

"Nah, thanks though. If your magic hasn't come back all the way I don't think you should be using it a lot, and the power might be out for a couple more days."

So he was worried for Loki's health. That was new. Usually people just doubted his ability.

Janie disregarded any sort of response Loki might have had and continued on, "What's up with you anyway? I reckon you should've been juiced up by now."

"I am in perfect health," Loki sneered. Physical health, anyway.

"Then why are you still here?" The question seemed to pop out of its own volition, because Janie winced as soon as it was out of his mouth. "Let me-"

Oh, _that_ was it, wasn't it? The Midgardian was just tolerating his presence, was he?

Loki rose sharply, knocking his chair against the wall. Why was he still there anyway? He didn't have to deal with this pathetic mortal. The cold would be uncomfortable, but he had been in worse. Summoning his armor and a light, he turned on his heel and made his way to the door. He supposed the Midgardian could live as compensation for bringing him in from the blizzard, but he swore if they ever met again he wouldn't hesitate to wipe him from reality.

As he strode towards the door he heard a soft sigh, followed by footsteps scrambling to keep up with him. Just as Loki reached the door Janie managed to catch up and knotted a hand into his cape.

"Wait!" Any words he was planning on saying were swallowed by a pained hiss when Loki grabbed the wrist of the hand _touching him_ and turned to face him.

"Do not _touch_ me, you pathetic little creature! I have tolerated you for long enough, but if you do that again I swear I will remove your hand." And he would. It probably wouldn't kill him. Why wasn't Janie looking terrified?

Janie seemed to be mildly irritated and long-suffering as well as in pain for reasons Loki couldn't understand, but not even slightly terrified.

Despite Loki's grip, Janie was still holding onto the cape. "If you're going to leave, take this."

He whisked off his quilt with his unoccupied hand and offered it to Loki, which Loki proceeded to stare at uncomprehendingly. If the Midgardian wanted him gone so badly, why was he giving him anything?

The staring went on for longer than was strictly necessary, and Janie was looking more and more uncomfortable by the minute. He began to bounce slightly on his toes and gently tried to tug his wrist back from Loki in order to take a very long step backwards.

Loki was having none of it though. He wasn't going to let Janie go until he figured out just what was going on in his crazy little skull.

Discovering motives wasn't generally a problem for Loki, but he couldn't quite grasp why Janie had been doing anything for the last couple of days. That could not continue.


	8. Mendacity

AN: So, hi, I'm still alive. Just in case anyone was worried or anything. I've just been working through the urge to set my stuff ablaze, send it through a shredder, or generally kill it in a myriad of violent and horrible ways. Normal writer stuff, basically. I'll try and update at least once a week at least over the summer, but I can't make any promises due to my delicate wind-chime of a self-image. This _will_ get faster after I get through the giant wall of exposition I accidentally made myself vault over. Probably. Maybe. We'll see. Thanks for your patience, and nothing recognizable as remotely canon is mine.

* * *

Discovering motives wasn't generally a problem for Loki, but he couldn't quite grasp why Janie had been doing anything for the last couple of days. That could not continue.

All thoughts of storming out gone, Loki turned in order to more fully examine a very tense-looking Janie. There had to be some reason for offering him the blanket. Was it an attempt at assuaging some of Loki's anger so he wouldn't be obliterated? Was he tense because he was afraid Loki was going to reject his peace offering?

After a moment of thought, he concluded Janie was probably edgy because of the hold he had on his wrist. It allowed Loki the definite upper hand in the confrontation. There also seemed to be something already wrong with said wrist, so pain may have been contributing to Janie's stress. How helpful. People were always more forthcoming when they were in pain.

Apparently Janie had figured out at least part of the reason for the scrutiny because he snapped, "It's _cold_ , okay? I don't care how magical you are. Frostbite is frostbite."

So Janie just _cared_? That couldn't be all of it. That was never all of it. Maybe he had been expecting some sort of reward for bringing Loki in and now that he was taking his exit he was panicking.

These were the sorts of things Loki needed to know when dealing with people, and he couldn't tolerate not knowing. Even if he left now and never saw Janie again, he would be continually harassed by thoughts of what the Midgardian could have been doing.

It wasn't just because Janie was 'nice', that was definitely true. He seemed like a genuinely good person for most of the time, but playing games had revealed he schemed and lied expertly. He was smart. Nobody smart just did things out of the goodness of their hearts. That was an action for fools and simpletons.

It was decided. Before he left, he was going to have to figure Janie out. It wouldn't take long. He was just a Midgardian after all.

Janie looked to be readying for another remark, but before he could begin Loki wrenched him towards the couch, shoved him into the cushions, and neatly sat on the other side. The light lazily floated after them and settled up on the ceiling.

Having regained his arm, Janie huffed in irritation and gingerly began to prod at his wrist. He seemed completely absorbed in his examination, but his eyes snapped to Loki when he started to speak.

"We are going to have a talk. I am going to ask you questions. You will answer me honestly and with as much detail as possible. You will not dance around them, play with the words, or generally avoid the question. If you do any of the things I have mentioned, I will creatively and painfully injure you until you give me what I want. Do you understand?"

Janie carefully rolled up his right jacket sleeve, revealing a rather rumpled layer of gauze. While he straightened and smoothed down his bandage he asked, "What kind of injury?"

"That is for me to decide." Loki watched disinterestedly as Janie fiddled with his bandages. Hopefully whatever it was caused intense pain.

After a final poke at his wrist, Janie transferred his entire attention to Loki. "Didn't anyone ever tell you it's rude to threaten people? 'Cause you seem to do it a lot."

That proved it. Janie was absolutely insane. He had absolutely no sense of self preservation, he didn't seem to internalize anything Loki said, and he didn't make _any sense_ _whatsoever_. It was irritating to say the least.

Loki took a moment to overcome the sudden wave of frustration. The faster this went, the faster he could leave. "Why did you bring me here?"

"We're still on this question?" Janie pinched the bridge of his nose, "I saw you in an alley, and decided not to leave you out in the snow. We earthlings have these things called _consciences_ that let us do nice things without expecting stuff back. Crazy I know, but there you are."

Infuriatingly enough, that wasn't a lie as far as Loki could tell. He supposed it was a valid excuse; anyone with some kind of compassion wouldn't have just left someone out in a snowstorm. Sheer niceness didn't explain why he actively helped after the initial good act. That was the problem with the entire situation. Good acts, if done at all, were always done with minimum effort in his experience, and tolerating Loki was not a small effort. He could admit it.

"Why did you allow me to stay?" Not that Janie could have kicked him out anyway, but still…

Janie looked him straight in the eye and said, "Your charming personality."

 _That was it._ Loki snarled and started forwards, causing Janie to skitter backwards off the couch while yelling, " _Whoawhoawhoa_! Hands to yourself Mr. Freezyfrosty!"

If that comment hadn't been enough to stop Loki in his tracks, the expression that fleetingly danced across Janie's face certainly was. He winced ever so slightly, and then tried very hard to look like he had never said anything at all. That was the look of someone who knew they shouldn't have said something. That something was usually a secret. Generally, Loki was anywhere between content and ridiculously smug when he got someone to accidentally reveal a secret, but this secret…

How could the Midgardian have even found out about _that_? For a ridiculous moment Loki clutched to the idea that his insistence to never be told to 'chill' had given Janie the idea for the name, but that only lasted until his eyes landed on gauze.

Had he…? Janie had said he had been incoherent for hours after his 'rescue', and it was possible he had…switched… due to what had undoubtedly been an intense case of magical exhaustion. Frost giants froze whatever they touched, and Midgardians were notoriously delicate.

As Loki stood staring broodingly at Janie's wrist, Janie himself was awkwardly paused mid-flight, with a foot still on the arm of the couch and hands outstretched in defense. He cautiously followed Loki's line of sight and furtively rolled down his jacket sleeve to cover his injury.

"Cooking accident," He offered.

For a beautiful moment Loki believed him. After all, who in their right mind would willingly bring a frost giant into their home? He almost managed to rationalize himself into acceptance and restart his quest to break some limbs. Almost.

Drawing himself up to his full height and crossing his arms, Loki feigned politeness and asked, "Oh really? What happened? It must have been impressive to cause that."

Judging by the way Janie stiffened ever so slightly the pseudo-niceness was something he was familiar with. "I was cooking ramen, because that's the only food I have that's cookable, and I caught on fire. Burns are nasty, you know?" He smiled hopefully at Loki.

"Indeed." That seemed to be truthful enough. "How, pray tell, did you manage to catch _yourself_ on fire? Are Midgardians more flammable than I was lead to believe?"

"Shirtsleeve plus gas stove equals _pain_. Let's just put it that way." Janie's eyes danced.

As incredibly clever as that _wasn't_ , it was a lie. Logically, the lie meant Janie had managed to burn his wrist on something else entirely, or he hadn't burned his wrist at all. As utterly spasmodic as Janie seemed to be, Loki very much doubted he had managed to scald just his wrist with boiling water or some other ludicrous thing.

Fortunately enough, there was an easy way to see if Janie was telling the truth or not. Loki started forwards with a purpose once more.

Unsure of just exactly what Loki was doing, Janie started to inch back slightly. As Loki kept advancing Janie's inches became a full-blown retreat. Neither of them broke out into a run, mostly because the apartment was too small for that, but the pace was speeding up ever so slightly as Loki became more irritated and Janie became more wary. Jane backed up over all of his paraphernalia with surprising grace, but he was eventually going to run out of room.

Especially since the room he had to maneuver was limited. Janie had been stationed on the half of the couch near the door, not the kitchen, which left him very little space. The only way Janie might have been able to escape was to go out the front door, which Loki thought was very unlikely because of the snowstorm.

But Janie was just full of surprises, because as soon as he backed into the doorknob he sent Loki a not-quite-sane grin, whipped open the door, and took off down a…hallway?

Loki shook off his surprise and resolved to figure _that_ out after he had caught Janie. As long as this building wasn't inside of another building, Loki was certain this would be quick.

Summoning his light to his side, he raced down the hallway after Janie. If he had his magic back all the way, this would have been so much _easier_. He could have just made it impossible for Janie to move when he had started to run or just forced him to tell the truth in the first place. But _no_ , he was running around in the dark, trying to find one insignificant little Midgardian in what was proving to be a large facility. Not only that, but he was finding it hard to focus enough to create some kind of plan. And the world was starting to swim. Maybe he hadn't quite recovered yet.

Janie was almost impossibly fast and he played the winding halls to his advantage. Each time Loki rounded a corner, without fail Janie would be a full hallway length out of his reach, cackling with glee.

In response, Loki began to mentally map out the area. He slowed to a walk and carefully memorized were everything went. There were _stairs_ , which made everything both easier and harder depending on what Loki decided to do. After he had pinned most of it down, which took much longer than Loki would have liked, he began actively trying to cut Janie off by making some unexpected turns of his own.

He was getting closer, he had actually had Janie within grabbing distance a few times, but somehow Janie had always known which corner he was lurking around.

Loki paused again at the foot of some stairs to ponder it. He could take all the time he wanted. Janie wouldn't be going out of _that_ front door, that was for sure.

How was Janie sensing him? Loki wasn't one to thunder down hallways, so he couldn't have been giving his position away with sound. Janie wasn't magical in any way he could see, so Loki's signature wasn't giving him away. He stared disinterestedly at his little ball of light, a little beacon shining in the darkness of the stairwell.

 _Oh_.

Of course! Janie would see the light Loki had created and retreat as quickly as he could in the opposite direction. The darkness had slipped Loki's mind momentarily, but he could work with that easily. The only problem would be finding Janie again in the labyrinth that was the confounded building.

Right on cue, at the top of the stairwell Loki heard something skitter to a stop, hiss a string of what were presumably curses, and pelt off in another direction. Loki immediately shot up the stairwell and arrived at the top just in time to see Janie skidding left around a corner. As much as a maze as it was, at least the building had very long hallways.

Having found Janie, Loki enacted his plan.

He sent the light spinning off into a side hallway to cut off Janie's retreat and quietly slipped down the hall after Janie directly. If this worked, Janie would see the light, turn back immediately, and run right into Loki. So simple even Thor could do it.

The only problem was now it was almost absolutely dark. Loki guessed Janie had been managing because he knew the building so well, but he wasn't so lucky. Loki was very tempted to create another light, but he didn't want to reveal to Janie that one of the lights wasn't him.

Casting aside the vague worry that he was about to march off a flight of stairs, Loki strode down the hallway. Eventually he saw a glimmer of light and heard an irritated huff not much farther ahead of him.

Springing into action, Loki broke into a run and lunged at Janie's silhouette. Said silhouette apparently had excellent hearing because it suddenly ducked down into another hallway. Sharply turning after him, Loki called his light to him so he could actually see what was going on.

What luck! It seemed to be a dead end. Janie noticed a moment too late and tried to stop, but ended up sliding face first into a wall.

Sure of his victory, Loki sauntered down the hall towards an oddly cheerful looking Janie.

"Did you really think that would work?"

"Honestly?" Janie rubbed his nose and winced, "No. Boredom makes me do funny things. Like running from a homicidal Norse god in a sealed building, or throwing rocks at the Pope."

Once again, Loki stopped short. "You got _bored_?"

Janie shrugged apologetically, which caused his sleeves to roll down a bit, and sent Loki a sheepish smile. "Well, life threatening situations are only entertaining for so long. But the run around was nice."

Now Loki was looking at Janie like _he_ was the raving lunatic. "You think running for your life is _fun_?"

Tapping his chin, Janie shot Loki a questioning look, "Are you going to kill me?"

"Perhaps. You did lie to me after I expressly told you not to do so." Loki replied. He realized his urge to injure Janie was almost gone after the shock of being exposed to the sheer ridiculousness that was Janie's mental process.

Handily enough, the insight managed to rekindle his irritation.

"It seemed like a touchy subject, ok? And you were looking kind of…life threatening. Like you are now." Janie tried to take a step backwards and bumped into a wall. "Are you hungry? I'm hungry. Let's go back to my apartment and you can kill me after we've had a nibble."

And with that, Janie tucked his hands into his pockets and jauntily walked down the hallway.

Perhaps he was expecting Loki to freeze up in utter disbelief of the absolute insanity that had just occurred. Maybe he thought he had somehow won the argument and Loki would just follow him back to the apartment.

Instead, when Janie passed him Loki's hand snapped out and grabbed Janie's arm, stopping him short and eliciting a wince. They proceeded to stand there in an uncomfortable silence.

Janie finally broke it by asking resignedly, "Could you break the other one? I kind of need this one for Wednesday. Also, it's kind of screwed up enough as it is." He wiggled the fingers of his caught hand in what he seemed to think was demonstration.

Loki didn't even blink. Apparently he had managed to acclimate at least a little bit to Janie's madness. He _was_ mad, that was for sure, he was just more aware of reality than most mad people Loki had met.

Finally, Loki disappeared the bandage with a quick motion and readjusted his grip. What did it matter if he had caused it?

At first glance, Loki could almost convince himself it was a particularly nasty bruise, or even a burn. He was, after all, excellent at lying. At second glace, he could definitely see a handprint that looked quite familiar wrapped around said wrist. He knew what frostbite looked like. Warriors always came back from altercations with jötnar covered in it. Thor had a particularly advanced case once, and almost lost his entire arm. Funnily enough, Loki had never really had a problem with it.

He must have been gaping at the injury for a while, because the next thing he registered was Janie going up on the tips of his toes and leaning backwards slightly to peer at it with him.

"It doesn't look that bad, does it?" Janie studied his arm, "Oh. Well, it does look a bit nasty, but nothing a little TLC can't fix."

The intense lack of caring in Janie's voice snapped Loki out of the mental rut he'd managed to fall into: _He knows! Why did he help? What does he want? He knows!_

Did Janie not realize how damaging frostbite could be? Especially when it was black. The handprint was most definitely black, and the skin around it didn't seem to be faring any better. Loki was impressed Janie could even move his hand.

The tiny little voice in the back of his head in charge of denial insisted he had to make sure that _he_ was the one that had caused that. After all, the Midgardian had admitted to associating with "mutants", maybe this was an older injury from one of them. It stood to reason if they could shoot fire, they could also control ice.

Making sure to squash any hint of trepidation in his voice, Loki demanded, "How did this happen?"

"Why do you care?" Janie had managed to twist himself around in such a way that he was standing next to Loki instead of in front of him. It looked uncomfortable.

"That is none of your concern. How did this happen?"

"It's my arm! That makes it my concern."

"Just _tell_ me." It came out a little more desperate than Loki would have liked to admit.

The desperation, which would have made any Asgardian more determined to hold onto the information, seemed to have the opposite effect on Janie. He regarded Loki for a few seconds, mentally debating something, and eventually came to a conclusion. Looking Loki straight in the eye he sighed and said, "You were blue when I found you."

It was the most truthful thing the Midgardian had said since Loki met him.

He wanted to be smug. He wanted to relish in finally getting a straight answer from this infuriating mortal. He wanted to pretend the answer had actually been no, and Janie was lying.

"Hey," Janie broke into his train of thought just as gently as before, "Do you want to go back to the apartment and I'll explain? Or I can show you to the front door if you still want to leave."

Leave? Oh, yes, that. The rush of irritation managed to tug him back from an edge he hadn't realized he was balancing on. "You wanted me to leave."

"No," Janie was still very calm, "I have foot-in-mouth disease, and you stormed off before I could rephrase."

 _That_ was rich. "Really? Explain then." This ought to be good.

Janie rubbed at a temple with his unoccupied hand. "Could I have my arm back first? I'm losing circulation."

"I think not. When you answer my question I will consider it."

"Great. You're gonna give me a migraine, you know that?" Stepping slightly away from Loki so they could carry on a proper conversation, he admitted, "When I asked why you were still here, I didn't mean I wanted you gone. You'd know if I wanted you gone. I'd just tell you to leave."

That was surprising. Loki raised an eyebrow. "You would tell a god to leave?"

"Well, yes. How else would I get you to go? If I tried to hint I wanted you gone, you'd probably just stay longer to bug me."

True enough. Of course he'd stay if he was told to leave as well. No mortal commanded Loki. He gestured for Janie to continue.

"I just was surprised someone who could leave would stay." He admitted with a pained look.

"Ah." If Loki were being completely honest he still couldn't just teleport away, but now the blanket made sense. Janie hadn't wanted him to leave, but when Loki started to he felt like he needed to make sure his guest didn't die of exposure.

Since he was being honest, he didn't really feel like wandering around in a blizzard filled with Jötnar. That left only one option.

He was confident Janie wasn't going to try to lose him in the winding hallways, so he let go of his arm and asked, "Where is it?"

"Where's what?"

"Your _home_ , you blithering idiot!"

"That is an excellent question." Janie absentmindedly rolled his sleeves down against the cold, and looked at what seemed to be a plaque on one of the doors lining the hallway.

" _You don't know where we are_?" Why was he not surprised? Of course, that meant he was almost outmaneuvered by somebody literally running blind.

"I know exactly where we are!" Janie declared, ignoring Loki's scoff of disbelief, and pointed to the door he had been examining. "We are at room two hundred and twenty-three, which means we are on the second floor. I'm on floor three, so we just need to find a staircase."

"And where, pray tell, is a staircase?" Janie was going to give _him_ a headache.

"Also an excellent question. I'm open to ideas," Said headache chirruped.

Instead of actually waiting for Loki to respond he ambled down the hallway and turned left. "This building isn't that big, we should run into a staircase eventually."


	9. Misrepresentation

**AN** : So to the five or so people who are actually following this story, I'm sorry if you got momentarily spammed. I had some posting issues, and luckily it got pointed out to me about five seconds after I posted it. But it's fixed now, and I _actually_ posted something around when I said I would!

Disclaimer: I own nothing recognizable, don't really want to, and hope it stays that way. Can you imagine the chaos that would occur if _I_ was in charge of the MCU?

((()))

"And where, pray tell, is a staircase?" Janie was going to give _him_ a headache.

"Also an excellent question. I'm open to ideas," Said headache chirruped.

Instead of actually waiting for Loki to respond he ambled down the hallway and turned left. "This building isn't that big, we should run into a staircase eventually."

He was right about that at least. Within ten minutes they had gone up a staircase, passed by quite a few doors, and stopped in front of what was quite possibly the ugliest painting in existence. Janie had stared at it until Loki's questionable well of patience was about to run out, and then declared they were close.

Loki rather doubted it.

Cheerfully ignoring Loki's non-verbal threats to his life, Janie continued on down the hallway. Suddenly, something seemed to occur to him and he stopped short.

"You need protein. One minute." And with that, he turned and knocked sharply on one of the doors.

Loki was done with trying to figure out Janie's train of thought. "Care to share?"

For once, Janie seemed to be willing to cooperate. He turned so he was leaning against the doorway and facing Loki. "You might want to put the light out for a second. It might freak whoever this is out." He waited until Loki had grudgingly snapped the light out of existence before continuing, "You burned yourself out. As good as ramen and cheerios are, they don't have enough energy to help you replenish. If you just had super-healing instead of magical mojo I would have thought of this sooner, but it's been a while since I've had to deal with a magically exhausted person. Usually they can just power themselves back up, but you're not, so let's try giving your body more to work with. I also think you still haven't quite unrattled your brain."

 _That_ …unfortunately made sense. Maybe that was his problem. Although it brought up more questions than it had answered. Before he could demand a reason for Janie having dealt with magical exhaustion before, a voice came through the door.

"That better not be _you_ Kellen! I'm not giving you my WI-FI password!"

For some reason the voice caused Janie to pale, which was impressive in itself, and he flattened himself against the wall next to the door faster than Loki had seen him move thus far. Also impressive, considering the speed at which he had been running earlier.

Before Loki could demand an answer about _that_ the door swung open to reveal a petite Midgardian woman wielding some sort of light, or at least it was probably a woman. She was wrapped in so many layers any sort of gender indication was lost, but her voice was a bit too shrill for her to be a man.

She stood blinking in surprise at Loki for a few seconds. Glancing covertly down at himself, he realized perhaps his battle armor could be considered a touch odd. Oh well.

As she recovered herself, Loki shot a look at Janie, who was doing his very best to melt into the wall while glaring Loki into silence.

So he didn't want to deal with this woman? A grin started tugging at the corner of Loki's mouth, and Janie's glare intensified. _Don't you dare_ was practically radiating off of him, but Loki didn't care in the slightest. This was going to be the most fun he'd had in ages.

The woman finally overcame her gaping spell, or at least most of it, she shook her head and asked, "You knocked?"

Putting on his most charming smile, Loki motioned to Janie and replied, "I'm terribly sorry, but no. It was him."

She had to lean out of her doorway to see Janie, which gave him just enough time to shoot Loki a withering glare and rearrange himself to look like he was lounging instead of trying to escape. Instead of the slightly insane, jumpy, and generally spastic person Loki had gotten marginally used to, a slightly nervous, very sheepish person clicked into place. Gone were the minute twitches and inability to focus, and in their place was purely nervous finger tapping and unwavering attention.

Loki was reluctantly impressed by Janie's acting skills. He wasn't quite so good at it that it fooled Loki, but he could appreciate craftsmanship.

When the Midgardian woman had leaned out enough that the two were face to face, Janie waved a little and said, "Hi Rebecca," while affecting an embarrassed smile.

"Oh. Hi Janie! How aren't you freezing in that? It's like twenty below zero. I've got a parka you could borrow. Who's your friend? Did you finally get someone to help pay your rent? I know you're tight on money with college and all. Where does your money even go? You've got three jobs and you still live here? I sure wouldn't be living here if the talent scouts got their heads out of-"

" _Yes_ , Rebecca, nice to see you too. Um. This is my cousin, Louis," Janie pointed vaguely in Loki's direction. "I was showing him around New York before the whole blizzard happened, so now he's crashing at my place."

 _Louis_?

Before he could respond to being saddled with such a ridiculous name "Rebecca" returned her attention to Loki and gave him a much more thorough look. It went from looking to ogling after a few seconds, and her blatancy was making Loki a mite uncomfortable. Generally this happened to Thor and he laughed from the sidelines.

He shot another look at Janie which quickly turned into a glower as he realized Janie had somehow set this woman on him. Janie just grinned and waved in response.

When she finally managed to tear herself away from staring Rebecca asked, "What's with the outfit?"

Janie had apparently already thought this through, because Loki could even offer an excuse or threaten her Janie had launched into his own explanation.

"Mythology-Con!" He coupled this declaration with a grandiose flourish as Rebecca turned back to him. "It's where all of these serious scholars of mythology from around the world come and try to convince each other their pantheon is the best. Some of them really get into it and get groups to dress up as their respective people. It can get pretty elaborate. Of course, it can also get kind of violent. We were there earlier, but decided to leave when Quetzalcoatl punched Zeus out for making fun of bloodletting. Then Poseidon went after Tlaloc for mocking the fact that he could only control the ocean, and it kind of became an angry Aztec-Greek mosh pit after that."

Alright, maybe Janie hadn't thought that through. It was the most ridiculous explanation Loki had ever heard, even if some of the portrayals were almost exactly right. Asgard had lost contact with most of the other pantheons a little more than five-hundred years ago, but from what Loki could remember that was pretty much how any sort of multi-pantheon meeting went.

But there was no way this woman would take that lie as a straight fact.

"Oh, you're a scholar?" Rebecca transferred her attention back to Loki and toyed with a stray ringlet of caramel hair. "I love me some college professor."

He stood corrected. If she tried to touch him Loki would disintegrate her.

Apparently the sentiment had showed on his face, at least to Janie, because he raised an eyebrow and shot Loki a very pointed look. Before things could get violent, Janie peeled himself off of the wall and neatly stood between Loki and Rebecca.

In order to draw her attention back to him and not Loki he continued, "Becky, as fun as it is to talk to you, we did come here for a reason."

"I already said you could borrow my parka. You shouldn't be running around in sweatpants and a jacket in this weather!" She looked absolutely scandalized by the notion.

Janie just looked confused. "I don't need your parka. It's not that cold in here you know. Anyway, you've seen my apartment, and it's not really equipped to feed two people at once, plus this week was shopping week so I'm low on food anyway." He paused, seemingly bracing himself for something. Then he blurted, "We were wondering if you had any extra stuff lying around we could have."

At Rebecca's confounded look, Janie seemed to shrink a little. "I just thought because you had that big fridge you had a bit more food than we did. Sorry. I'll pay you back for anything we take."

The wounded animal gambit seemed to do the trick. Vague disgust and grudging admiration warred in Loki until he settled firmly on apathy.

Rebecca smiled widely and said, "Sure! Sure, come in and grab something. I've got plenty and I'm just eating for myself."

She stood to the side of the door and waved for them to enter. Janie shot Loki a questioning look. In response, Loki sauntered to the wall and leaned against it. Janie was very much mistaken if he thought Loki was going to go in there.

Rebecca was looking a bit hurt by Loki's actions, so Janie once again pulled an excuse out from what Loki suspected was the top of his head. Or somewhere lower.

"Oh, he's not being rude." He sent an unimpressed look over his shoulder to tell Loki he was being rude, but continued, "It's a Norwegian thing. People don't go into the house of somebody until they're very good friends. It makes it really hard to throw wild parties."

For some unfathomable reason, that seemed to satisfy Rebecca and she flounced back into the apartment after Janie. Not one to sit around at the beck and call of others, Loki snapped the light back into existence and set off down the hallway with a hazy plan to find Janie's residence. There were only so many doors and it was near a corner, which wasn't much to go on, but he'd find it eventually. Loki had always liked a good challenge.

It wasn't nearly as hard to find as Loki had thought it would be.

As he turned the first corner a little piece of yellow paper stuck on a door caught his eye. Having nothing better to do, he went closer to see what it was. It was very, very small with equally small words, and since Loki didn't feel like pressing his face up against a door he reached out to tear it off.

To his surprise it peeled smoothly off of the wall. He noticed there was some sort of adhesive strip on the back, and felt a little foolish for being startled by a piece of paper. Shunting his irritation at himself to the back of his mind, he refocused on the writing.

 _PLEASE DO NOT REMOVE._

It was a little late for that. Irony aside, the handwriting looked distantly familiar. He'd seen it somewhere recently, but where?

Trying to get his brain to comply with his wishes was turning out to be a challenge all its own. The answer kept slipping in and out of focus, just out of reach but definitely there. Loki was going to make Janie outline just exactly what had been wrong when he was found.

Speaking of Janie… Loki mentally compared the writing on the note from the door with the writing scrawled across all of the diagrams he had been examining earlier. Both looked like they had been written by somebody who had been in a hurry and more than a little unfocused. But what consolidated the match in Loki's mind was the odd way that the O's were written.

All of the letters were odd, but the O's were as angular as circles could possibly be. He wasn't even aware circles could be square.

It had somehow slipped Loki's mind, he was blaming the head injury he had sustained, but these same peculiarities were everywhere in Janie's notes. If somebody else had handwriting like that in the building Loki would give up his claim to royalty.

Logically, if Janie had put this note on the door then this was his apartment. It seemed like Janie _had_ been taking them in the right direction after all.

The door was slightly ajar so Loki crumpled the note in his palm, pushed the door open, and walked in. As an afterthought, he closed it firmly behind him and locked it. He assumed the key hanging on the hook next to the door unlocked it, so that put him in control of the situation.

Feeling very pleased with himself, Loki stepped over various debris and sat on the couch. When he eventually found a position that wasn't too uncomfortable, he snatched up the paper he had been reading and settled in to wait for Janie to eventually appear. If he had gauged the Midgardian woman right, Janie would be trying to retrieve whatever it was he was after for a very long time.


	10. Pretense

Not mine. Sally forth.

((()))

It had been long enough that Loki had worked his way through most of the diagrams and was right in the middle of what he assumed were lecture notes of some sort before he heard people walking past the door.

"That's your apartment, right?" That was presumably Rebecca. She had followed Janie home.

Wondrous.

Of course, if the note was there because Janie couldn't remember which apartment was his, then it was a very good thing he had been followed. Elsewise Loki would have had to go and find him.

A bemused voice broke through Loki's brooding, "It is, isn't it? At least I know Louis is here. My sticky note is gone."

There was an awkward silence. Loki could practically feel it through the door. He was sorely tempted to go open it and mock Janie relentlessly for being a gormless idiot, but masterfully restrained himself.

"Well…" Janie sounded like he was on the edge of desperation. The woman probably thought he was being bashful. "I gotta go. See you later?"

"Okay, bye." Footsteps started off down the hallway and Janie let out a small sigh of relief. His sigh turned to a groan as the steps stopped, turned, and came back to in front of the door.

Loki may have been gloating a bit. He was exacting his revenge and it hadn't cost him anything except two sentences of dialogue with an irritating Midgardian.

"I was wondering," twittered the woman, "if you could give me Krow's phone number? He said he'd give it to me last time he visited, but when I came back with my phone he was gone."

"Krow?" Janie's utter perplexment quickly turned to unholy glee, "Oh! You mean Kiki? Sure, sure. I mean, he probably just had to go work and forgot." There was a moment of scribbling. "Here, try to call him around six if you do. He's not busy then."

That was a lie, no doubt. Who was this Kiki character, and why was Janie setting the woman on him? Did Loki really care?

No, no he didn't.

While Loki was affirming his utter indifference towards Janie's predicament, Rebecca finally left for her own apartment with a promise to drop by soon. Hopefully Loki would be gone before that happened.

After making sure Rebecca was truly gone, Janie muttered "Finally!" and tried to open the door.

 _Tried_ being the operative word.

"Oh come on!" Janie tried to wrench the door opened again, then kicked it in frustration. "Really? _Really_!? Now that's just petty. Fine. I'll sit out here. See if I care."

He was met with smug silence.

Janie sat down against the door and hissed, " _Razzafrazzin' bipolar superiority complex driven psychopath. Things to do, I don't have time for this. Why I oughta-_ "

"If you'd like to come in," Loki interrupted, "All you have to do is ask."

" _Ha_. Not happening."

"Then I hope you enjoy the hallway. Or perhaps you could explain to me how you've dealt with magic before. Or how you knew of Asgard, or even why you're unphased by life-threatening situations." Now that Loki thought about it, he had quite a lot of questions. "Any one will do."

"I'll do that when you let me in."

Well, if he was going to play that way…"We appear to be at an impasse," Loki drawled.

"Yup." Janie had apparently regained his good nature. It wouldn't last long.

Silence fell, and Loki returned to reading. He could wait as long as he needed to; it was Janie who was stuck in that ugly excuse of a hallway.

Around an hour later, Loki had run out of reading materials and thus his main source of entertainment. He was searching for something else to keep him occupied other than Janie because that would involve interacting, which defeated the purpose of cracking the Midgardian with monotony.

The jumble of odds and ends was starting to look appealing, and Loki was about to reach for an oddly ornate-looking box when his train of thought was suddenly interrupted by the Midgardian.

He hit the door with a _BANG_! "If you make _one more_ doghouse joke, I will _end you_! Do you hear me? _Fear for your life_."

…That proved Loki's insanity theory quite nicely. More importantly, what was a doghouse joke and did Loki know any?

Sadly finding himself lacking any such joke, Loki settled for irritably calling through the door, "I haven't said anything you imbecile. Kindly take your madness elsewhere."

"I wasn't talking to _you_ then, was I? Kindly keep your nose out of my private conversations." Janie pounded on the door once more for good measure. "And _you_ , you zip it. I wasn't talking to you either."

Ignorance was bliss. Loki did not want to get involved in whatever delusions the Midgardian was suffering, and thus decided the box he had previously been examining deserved a closer look. He scooped it up carelessly and fingered the etchings around the top of the lid. They were oddly familiar…

"Don't touch that! It's closed for...reasons. _Important_ reasons."

How did he even…? Well, all the more reason to open it. It wasn't even locked, just held shut with a simple latch and what seemed to be a mild repellence charm. Yes, now he recognized the designs on the lid. They were runes, simple ones, which wove delicate strands of protection over the objects they were imprinted on. Another question to ask.

Not that it particularly mattered; anybody with any kind of magical talent could rip right through it and Loki was nothing if not talented. He flipped open the lid with ease, tentatively touched what looked to be a dull greenish rock and watched in stunned silence as it _twitched_ in response. Then, to Loki's growing confusion, it lifted into the air and started to circle lazily around his head.

He dispensed of his previous plan to bore Janie into compliance as he examined his satellite. "Is that a _bloodstone_?"

Janie's steady stream of grousing ground to a halt as he registered Loki's comment. "Bloodstone? Wha-"

The stone stopped circling and seemed to point towards the door.

A snarl ripped itself from Janie. "Birgir! You're _dead_ , you hear me? I'm gonna grind you up, sell you on the black market, and buy a _better_ stone!" He paused for a moment as if listening to something. "I don't _care_ if he opened your box! We've already had this conversation. When people are over, you stay inside it you _menace_!"

The rock started sinking lower and lower throughout Janie's haranguing in what? Shame?

"Yeah, you'd better be sorry. Come open the door."

Perking up, the stone zipped over to the key and knocked it off of its hook before Loki could rouse himself from his stunned silence. Janie's fingers flickered under the door and snagged the liberated key, then he stormed in.

Instead of focusing on the dangerous Norse god lounging on his couch, he scowled at the stone. It actually _flinched_ away from his gaze. "What do you have to say for yourself?"

Was the stone talking _back_? It was the only explanation Loki could think of. Speaking of the stone… "Its name is helper?"

Janie snapped to attention as Loki spoke. "Hmm? Oh, that. I was, like, six when I named him. I've tried to change it, but he won't do it."

Loki stared incredulously at him. "You received a powerful magical artifact when you were a _child_? Where did you get it?" On a side note, why wasn't it given an English name?

Instead of answering, Janie plucked 'Birgir' out of the air and sauntered towards Loki. He perched on the arm of the couch and started gesticulating vaguely with his other hand, which was holding a bag of some sort. "There was this old lady who didn't want to deal with his sass anymore, so she gave him to me. She used to watch me when my parents were busy and Birgir and I hit it off. Probably because I actually talked to him instead of ordering him around like he was a piece of rock."

"I wasn't aware bloodstones existed on Midgard anymore." Loki held his hand out for the stone, curious despite himself. It was handed over with a shrug and a hiss to ' _behave_ '. It wasn't clear as to whom Janie was directing that comment, but Loki really couldn't have cared less.

The stone appeared to be a bonafide bloodstone. A _very_ old bloodstone, which explained the personality and the mobility. If he recalled correctly, bloodstones became more powerful as they aged. Loki supposed Janie having a bloodstone made sense if his claims of being a doctor were true, as healing was really the only art they were useful in, but still…

As Loki prodded Birger into revealing secrets, Janie raised himself off of the arm of the couch and started to nudge the various things on the floor, including another ear-hat and a pair of gloves, into small piles in an attempt to clean the room. He was still at it when Loki registered he had been sidetracked _again_.

Birgir seemed to sense Loki's sudden mood change and jerked out of his hand to cower in a corner. Loki glared daggers at the back of Janie's head, waiting for him to turn to properly give him some answers. He ground his teeth as it became apparent Janie wasn't going to rejoin the conversation willingly, and snapped his fingers together with just enough magic to make an eardrum-rattling _CRACK_!

Janie jerked in surprise and accidentally kicked a glass globe towards Loki, which gently tapped against Loki's boot. It was a fairly unremarkable object, and Loki was ready to dismiss it until he noticed Janie. He had frozen as soon as the globe had made contact with Loki, and looked to be debating whether to run away or lunge for it.

So whatever it was, it was much more important than it looked. Shooting Janie a grin that was all teeth he reached down to scoop it up, and right before he tapped it Janie hissed, "Wait a sec-"

And then nothing.

((()))

He was being stretched and spun, crushed and twisted, peeled apart all at once. He was falling through the void all over again, reaching out to stop his descent with everything he had both physical and magical, trying and failing to regain control. Bits of himself were spiraling off into the black, he could feel it and there was nothing he could do.

And then it all stopped. As far as Loki could tell, he had ended up in a delicate bubble bobbing though soft yellow mist. It was actually quite relaxing. He was having trouble remembering why he had been in such turmoil before… something about his brother. Had Thor broken his favorite staff again?

It didn't really matter. Nothing really mattered.

Did it?

It was nice, not feeling. He could float on forever like this.

Maybe not feeling wasn't the phrase. Rage, confusion, betrayal, they were whirling and fighting to get into his sanctuary, but he didn't have any intention of letting them in. Why should he?

Loki clasped his hands behind his back and stared contentedly out at the mist. He may have stayed there indefinitely if not for Janie's sudden appearance.

He landed with a yelp and slid down the side of the bubble, bumping into Loki's leg as he came to a stop. Judging by the way he scrambled backwards and tried to balance on the sloped side of the room, he obviously expected an adverse reaction of some sort, but Loki could only summon vague ambivalence. Intellectually, he knew this was somehow Janie's fault, but he honestly couldn't care less.

Janie stopped his scramble to stay a good foot or so away at Loki's complete lack of retribution, slid closer once more, and stood on the tips of his toes to be more eye to eye. "Hi."

He looked bemusedly down his nose at Janie. "Hello."

This reply seemed to unsettle the Midgardian for reasons Loki couldn't fathom. Janie cautiously poked Loki in the chest. "You're not looking to h-good. Good. Yes." He searched Loki's eyes. "You don't actually want them back, do you?"

A faint twinge of irritation swirled around the room. "I don't know what you're referring to," Loki drawled, "but I assure you if I wanted something, it would already be in my possession."

The Midgardian continued as if Loki hadn't spoken. "I mean. It only took me around an hour to get them back, and I thought you'd be so murderous you'd snap right out of it, but if you don't _want_ them…"

As Janie floated away from the conversation, Loki cheerfully pushed him out of his mind and turned to watch the outside. It was wreathed in smoke now, thickened enough with various colors that _mist_ wasn't really an applicable term anymore.

Loki glanced behind him as he felt a tap on his shoulder. Janie smiled apologetically at him, sharply drew back his arm and punched Loki squarely across the jaw.

Years of fighting snapped Loki out of his stupor as he reflexively snapped his elbow backwards, catching Janie across the chin hard enough to spin him a full 360 degrees. The bubble burst as Loki's rage crashed into the room. "You _dare_ assault me?"

Clutching his jawline, Janie skipped backwards out of reach while yelling, " _Hey now_ , I did you a favor! _You're_ the one that went all suicidal on me!"

"I am _not_ suicidal!" Loki snarled back, stalking towards the irritant with murderous intent.

The smoke swirling around became thicker and darkened into a frankly alarming shade of red, shot through with yellows, blues, and oranges, obscuring Loki's view and ability to breathe. " _What have you done to me_?"

How was Loki going to kill Janie if he couldn't see?

" _Calm down_! You're gonna smother us both!"

So _he_ controlled the smoke? Well then…With a sharp breath in Loki neatly repressed his homicidal intent and confusion behind a wall of implacable apathy.

The choking smoke reflected the change by thinning out into a wispy fog. How helpful. It gave him a perfect view of Janie looking on in stunned silence. "Wow," Janie huffed, "You really are royalty, aren't you?"

If Loki acknowledged that he wouldn't be able to breathe again, so he decided to move on. "What. Did. You. _Do_."

Now it was Janie's turn to be irritated. " _I_ didn't do anything. You're the idiot that touched the Looking Glass."

"Fine. What did _it_ do?" Loki started to stride towards Janie, perfectly ready to inflict bodily harm.

Janie started to walk backwards. "It senses emotional…issues, and fixes it. Or at least it tries to." He broke into a light jog. "I told you not to touch it! But does anyone listen to me? _No_."

Suffice it to say, Loki was tired of the little game they had been playing. He just wanted a straight, highly detailed answer. Was that so much to ask? And why did he have something like that lying around in the first place?

What Loki needed was a plan. Currently that plan consisted of catching Janie and pounding an answer out of him, which wasn't his most cunning, but he hadn't been able to properly think since he had awoken on Midgard.

That was probably also somehow Janie's fault.

First, to lull his victim into a false sense of security. He stopped stalking towards Janie and asked in his most curious voice, "Where did you come by such an item?"

Taking note of Loki's shift in mood, Janie stopped as well and replied, "My brother. He thought I could use it for something."

The sudden switch from lethal intent to mild curiosity didn't even jar Janie. Perfect. Perhaps Loki's current inability to remain concentrated on one thing had actually done him a favor. Now to get within striking distance…

Loki started to subtly glide forwards as he asked, "Where did it take us? I do not recognize this place."

Janie took notice of the movement, but apparently didn't feel threatened enough to put more space between himself and the Norse god. His mistake. "We're not really anywhere. Or we're everywhere. It really depends on how you define minds."

That actually stopped Loki short for a second. "This is of the Astral Plane?" but he shook off his surprise and resumed his path forwards. "I suppose that would explain the endless, white nothing surrounding us."

All he received in response was a vague shrug of agreement. "Kiki thought it'd be more therapeutic than a view of the zooming cosmos."

Who was this 'Kiki' character? He had to have been very powerful to have created the so-called 'Looking Glass', as Janie was implying. No matter, Loki was almost within easy striking distance. One last question ought to do it.

"How does one leave this place? I don't see an exit." Loki reached his target distance and politely waited for Janie to answer. It would be nice to know how to leave, especially since he was planning on at the very least permanently damaging the person who knew the way out.

A bitter smile appeared on Janie's face. "You don't. Not until it lets you. It needs to complete its directive."

Directive? What was...It dawned on Loki that he really couldn't care less. What he cared about was turning this Midgardian into a smear, or possibly a pile of dust. Maybe even disintegrate him entirely. Loki was flexible.

Not one to tarry when a plan of action was decided, Loki took advantage of Janie's brooding spell to strike and lunged towards his target.

Instead of hitting something solid, as is generally expected when one attacks somebody, Loki caught air and watched as Janie fragmented into four replicas of himself.

Well that was an interesting defense mechanism.

((()))

AN: I was actually really nervous about posting this chapter, mostly because it's where things get a little wonky. I know at least _I_ have a knee-jerk eye-roll reaction to OC's getting fancy, which is hilariously hypocritical of me I know, but we've almost hit plot people! I sound like the worlds saddest broken record at this point, but it's true. Also, random shout-out to CodenameRedKrystalMatrix for somehow finding my story and favoriting it, thereby successfully guilting me into actually getting over myself and updating.

Thanks to them and whoever else is interested.


	11. Obfuscate

Still not mine, in case anyone's curious. Please enjoy.

((()))

He was snapped out of his stupor both when he realized he was suddenly surrounded, and when the three new Janies started to shout at the top of their lungs at each other. Loki backed out of the eardrum-shattering range of the phenomena to better analyze what in Asgard was going on, and was surprised when one of the Janies followed him with a thunderous expression.

"Look what you did!" it shouted, "Do you know how long it took me to shut them up last time? We're gonna be stuck in here forever!"

Apparently it was a he. The real Janie, that is, and he was fretting magnificently.

Loki was positively gleeful. As far as he could decipher from the jumble of sound tumbling over from the other three Janies, each represented an aspect of Janie that made up the whole. How helpfully cliche.

One, with absurdly messy hair, rumpled, holey clothes and stuck permanently in a cowering cringe, had worked itself into hysterics and was just screaming at the top of its lungs instead of actually saying anything. The other two were ignoring it with practiced ease. Loki supposed that was Fear. He was feeling mildly triumphant, because much of its babbling had been coupled with desperate gestures in his direction. Janie was afraid of him after all. Rightfully so. But that didn't exactly give Loki any leverage, so he moved on.

The first of the two locked in a heated debate was the most presentable of the three. Its curls were slicked neatly back, it wore an almost perfectly pressed suit, blindingly shined shoes, and stood ramrod straight in opposition to everything. Loki would have been tempted to label it solely Control, but it seemed to encapsulate other negative emotions as well. It had a nasty glint it its eye that promised swift, painful retribution and an almost manic paranoia air around it, eyeing Loki as closely as Loki was eyeing it. He had the distinct impression that it was plotting his death.

Loki just went with labelling it Ruthless. Short, to the point, and general enough to cover one-third of Janie's personality. Not that he cared for accuracy at the moment. It also wouldn't help.

The Janie involved in the screaming match with Ruthless looked ruffled, but not to the extreme that Fear was. His shirt looked like it was on backwards and his hair stuck straight out from his head curls and all, but as far as Loki could tell it just couldn't bother to find a brush. Fear neglected, this Janie just couldn't care less.

Oddly enough, it kept trying to tug Ruthless over towards Loki, and Ruthless looked ready to knock it unconscious. But why?

Before Loki could figure out the final Janie, it took the initiative and flounced over to him. The real Janie took one look at the approaching it and collapsed onto the ground in melodramatic despair. "You know what? I don't care anymore. Go for it."

Tossing a disdainful glance towards Janie, Loki turned to face the approaching figment. There was no way Janie could hide anything while his basic personality facets were milling around. Loki feigned a polite smile as it drew closer and prepared to peel the answers out of this new Janie.

It hadn't occurred to him it might be a touch more zealous than the Janie he was marginally used to.

"Hi!" it said, and proceeded to drown Loki in a sea of words. "Where are you from? Are you from Asgard? I thought you were from Asgard because you feel like an Asgardian, but you change colors and get all freaked out, so you might not be from Asgard. And are you a shapeshifter too? Is it a completely separate ability from magic, or can you shapeshift because you're magic? Can you actually speak my language? I don't think you can. I think you're using a translation spell or something, but you were all magically deprived when we were talking. Oh! You have the All-speak! Right? That must be it. But why are you still here? You'd leave if you could, right? Because you've got a serious superiority complex going on, and you think I'm an inferior being, and so you'd leave. Yes. But you're full of magic, I know it's there, so why can't you use it? Association issues? It's just floating around you like a halo. Did you know I've actually met an angel? He took a wrong turn and ended up in the wrong universe. He was very angry, and had the funniest outfit I've ever seen. You feel kind of like him, did you know? Probably not, but that's ok."

Loki stopped listening to it. His menacing glare wasn't having the wanted outcome of forcing it to dwindle off into an awkward silence. In fact, it started analyzing his scowling abilities and gave him advice on how to more properly menace people.

Of all the nerve! And the real Janie was cackling at him.

Well, at least Loki had a name for the irritating thing now. Curiosity seemed to be its driving force. As well as the ability to talk without needing to breathe. If magic was an option…

Wait. Who was to say it wasn't? There was an easy way to see in any case, and what exactly did Loki have to lose at this juncture?

Now to decide how to test his magic. Should he disintegrate one of the Janies? Maybe a multiplication spell to even the odds, not that even four Janies could stand up to one of him. Or perhaps starting small would be the better option. He could just cast a glamour on himself…but why miss the satisfaction of damaging Janie?

Mind made up, Loki focused and was pleasantly surprised when magic immediately jumped to his fingertips. It didn't matter that it was probably just a sensation stemming from what Loki was expecting to happen.

Janie, the real one, abruptly stopped chortling, stood, and gently pushed Curiosity away from Loki. It was a nice gesture, but ultimately useless. Loki had decided upon his test subject. Curiosity leaned around Janie just in time to be hit in the face by Loki's silencing spell. Blessed quiet reigned. Rather than panicking, which would have been ever so satisfying, Curiosity just poked at its neck in fascination while it tried to speak.

Happily enough, all of the Janies seemed to be affected by the enchantment. Probably because they were technically the same person. Ruthless and Janie were engaging in a silent battle of wills, which was apparently about what Ruthless wanted to do to Loki if all of Ruthless' blocked advances towards Loki were anything to go by. Janie was trying to talk Ruthless out of attacking Loki, but wasn't having a very successful time of it. Both were rather amusing to behold.

It took a moment for Fear to realize its screaming had been forcibly stopped, but when it did the reaction was glorious. Its eyes widened impossibly as it fell to its knees and clapped a hand over its mouth in terror. As the reality of the situation sank in further it clutched at its throat and melodramatically fell onto its side, flailing and silently shrieking in panic. It was just so pathetic!

Loki was perfectly content to sit back and revel in the chaos blossoming around him. Ruthless had redirected its anger towards Fear, and was viciously kicking it while Curiosity looked on in fascination. Janie appeared to be trying to sink into the ground, or maybe spontaneously combust with frustration. Either way, he was forced out of his self-pitying when Fear struck back at Ruthless.

For a sniveling ball of cowardice, Fear knew how to throw quite a punch. Both went down, Ruthless' calculated kicks and punches being rapidly overcome by Fear's reasonless, whirling attacks. It quickly devolved into a scuffle of mass proportions as Janie dragged Curiosity into the fray in an attempt to stop the unfurling madness.

Attempt being the operative word, of course.

Curiosity grabbed Fear while Janie tried to restrain Ruthless, and both found themselves on the receiving end of their captives. Curiosity was faring well, looking mildly confused as Fear tried to scratch its face off, but Janie apparently lacked in any sort of combat ability and was simply keeping just out of reach of Ruthless as it swung at him.

It was quite honestly the most entertaining thing Loki had seen since Thor had to get Mjolnir back from Thrymr.

There went his good mood, literally wisping into the air around him in strands of blue. Thor. His not-brother's rejection and subsequent bridge-tossing had cut deeper than Loki would care to admit. As painful as it was to even think it, Thor had always supported him, even if he had been condescending and overbearing about it. Only something truly horrible would be able to break Thor's utterly dense trust. If stupid, brainless, loyal-without-err Thor couldn't stand the idea of Loki's true heritage, then a monster he must be. And what place did a monster have in his old world?

Loki's temper soured as he stewed over his newly found status as the boogeyman of Asgard. Not even the sight of Curiosity joyously diving on top of the other three brawling Janie's could stir him from wallowing in his pool of self-disgust.

Was it getting colder?

Janie seemed to notice, and all four of him froze. Froze for different reasons, but still. Terror, suspicion, curiosity, and sheer disbelief were vaguely gleaned from all of them, but Loki wasn't really focusing on them at this point. The horribly foreboding sensation oozing its way through his awareness was currently taking precedence.

Crushed beneath the three main aspects of his personality Janie apparently encountered a revelation and madly scrambled to get a firm hold on all of his unruly counterparts. Before they could react to Janie's sudden grip, his face relaxed into a startling calm and the captive feelings disappeared in the blink of an eye.

Apparently being split into four wasn't nearly as much of a problem as Janie had made it out to be.

As soon as he had pulled himself together Janie hoisted himself off of the floor and began leisurely feeling around for something, eyes occasionally flicking back to Loki as if keeping track of his movements.

But as Loki drew closer, it became more and more obvious Janie wasn't keeping track of him, he was keeping track of something behind him.

Whatever that something was, Loki wasn't going to look because logically, if this was his mind, than anything he didn't acknowledge as real would simply not be real. And he really, really didn't want the something to be real. Mostly because it sounded horribly like a division of angry jötnar trying to be stealthy. After smuggling in such a group, Loki felt he could properly identify the sound.

It didn't really matter if Loki was going to admit their existence; they were there and they were getting much closer than he was comfortable with. He started to walk a bit faster, still refusing to look anywhere but at Janie, and arrived at his target just as Janie found what he was searching for.

Perhaps found wasn't the word. He collided face-first into something invisible and looked entirely too happy about it for it to have been an accident.

A door flickered into existence in front of them both, and Loki abandoned his plot to waylay the jötnar by throwing Janie at them. Just leaving would be much nicer.

Janie seemed to agree, if the soundless shout of victory and absurd little dance were anything to go by, but stopped himself short right before he tried to open the door. He scrutinized his hand for a moment, and then turned to regard Loki. Then with a mildly insulting bow, Janie gestured for Loki to open the door.

As if. Obviously it was rigged to do something unpleasant. "I'm not opening that. You'll have to be more creative if you want to get rid of me."

Instead of looking sheepish or angry he had been found out, Janie just looked very confused, _Get rid of?_ , then shook it off and desperately pointed over Loki's shoulder at what was presumably a rather large assembly of angry jötnar.

"They aren't real," At least, that was Loki's story and he wasn't about to think differently.

He received a very unimpressed look from Janie. _Yes they are. Now open the door._

"Why don't you open it? I don't see why I have to." Loki was shamelessly using the argument as a way of ignoring the wall of jötnar descending upon them, at least until Janie actually gave him a good reason.

Throwing Loki a dirty look and his hands up in the air in exasperation, Janie launched into an explanation of sorts until he realized he still couldn't make a sound. His hand went to his throat and he debated something internally, eyes jittering between Loki and the incoming army, before apparently throwing caution to the winds and tearing…something…off with one quick motion.

He gave Loki another irritated look before saying, "I can't open the door. That's why."

"You're speaking." How was he speaking? Did he _rip off_ the spell? Was that even possible?

"I thought you were supposed to be _clever_." Janie was ripping apart the spell and ignoring Loki's reaction, namely murderous irritation. "Yes, I'm speaking. This is my mind too you know. If you can conjure up magic and zap me with it, I can take it off again. Not rocket science. Now if you were psychic and did that, there would've been more of a problem. But that doesn't matter. Would you please open the door before we're mauled by your issues?"

"Why, exactly, must I be the one to do it? I can't isn't an answer."

Janie stayed silent and scowled at Loki, who was glaring back quite effectively due to having a good foot over Janie. Neither looked away, and both tried to make the other do what they wanted through sheer force of will.

Eventually the cold following the jötnar became almost unbearable, and Janie finally offered an explanation, still refusing to look away. "This is the place where you're supposed to face your internal issues and phobias. I'm afraid the door won't open, so it won't if I do it. You're afraid of them so it will for you."

Loki was just about to open the door anyway, mostly because the jötnar were within striking distance, and promptly did so after Janie stopped speaking. Not that his excuse made any sense whatsoever. It swung in easily; Loki slipped into the room on the other side and slammed the door in Janie's face. Or at least he tried to. Janie had managed to get to the door before it closed all the way, and was digging his heels in hard enough Loki couldn't quite manage to close it, but not hard enough that he could force the door opened to get in himself.

Both were too stubborn to back off, so they spent a good few minutes trying to either force their way in or close the door entirely. Loki supposed Janie wasn't technically human at this point, being a mind and all, and was standing up to Asgardian strength through sheer force of will which was both mildly impressive and intensely annoying. He was feeling oddly conflicted today.

"Hello dear," a distinctly feminine voice said from behind Loki. "Will you let Jan-"

"Janie! It's Janie!" The man who was emphatically Janie pounded on the door. "Go peck out somebody's eyes and leave me alone!"

A musical sigh looped across the room. "I'm just here to help sweetie. No need for name-calling."

"Oho! You help me like a hole in my skull." The door slid open a fraction. Just enough for Janie to lean over and shoot a piercing glare at the speaker, but a little too much for Loki's comfort.

It was entirely possible Janie could fit, considering his status as a living twig. That would mean Janie would win and Loki simply couldn't have that. There was only one solution to take considering the worryingly anonymous person behind him and the admittedly irrational need to come out as victor in his impromptu battle of wills. Besides, he needed to see if there was actually a fireplace or if the endless white nothing and jötnar had driven him into hearing things.

Loki stepped lightly away from the door and turned to face the new room, roaring fire and all. As soon as Loki stopped holding the door closed, Janie came sprawling into the room and landed flat on his back with a highly undignified yelp. A little stunned and very much winded, he squeaked out, "ow."

"There," the woman cooed, "isn't that much better?"

Janie snarled incoherently and pressed the heels of his hands into his eyes, but didn't move any farther than that. It was logical, Loki supposed, that knocking his skull into the hard flagstones of the ground had done damage to Janie. He was Midgardian after all.

He scoffed at Janie, "Are you going to move any time soon?" He just wanted to know if he was going to cause problems, that was all.

"Hmm..." One brown eye peeked out and focused on Loki. "No."

Shaking off his smug sneer, Midgardians were so delicate, Loki assumed his most gentlemanly persona and pivoted to meet the woman. At his first look he could quite honestly say he wasn't expecting her in the slightest.

The only unsurprising thing was she and the voice matched perfectly. She was sitting in an overstuffed armchair as if it was a mighty throne, swathed in blacks and deep purples that caught the occasional spark from the fire, almost melting away into the in-between of the fireplace and the shadows. Her silver hair peeking out from under a black feathered hat, the overall effect made her seem like she was everywhere at once. She smiled at him, and suddenly he felt he could tell her everything, that she would understand. It was both disconcerting and off-putting, but Loki still couldn't shake the feeling or the urge to talk. Distantly, he noted her darker complexion should have been almost completely obscured by her ensemble but…wasn't.

She was beautiful. And dangerous. Very, very dangerous.

Accompanied by two equally stuffed armchairs, she presumably wanted Loki and Janie to come join her by the fireplace. He didn't want to but Loki couldn't think of a real reason to not join her, and so started to stride towards the chair only to stutter to a stop as Janie warned, "She's gotcha."

Janie had, in fact, moved while Loki was…examining the host. He was lying on his stomach, head tilted and propped on his hand. "S'okay. Nobody's perfect."

"Oh hush you." The woman sighed in exasperation and massaged her temple with a gloved hand, "No need to scare our guest, I'm not the incarnation of evil you think I am."

"And yet here we are." Janie struggled to a sitting position. He seemed to be having trouble coordinating himself. "So 'm alright, and so is he, so we'll just be goin'. Sorry t' bother ya."

The woman rolled her eyes. "You can't even stand." She transferred her attention to Loki and said, "Hello dear, I am the Lady of the Mirror, but you may call me Delphi. I'm here to help."

Loki smoothly ignored Janie's incredulous snort and drew closer to Lady Delphi. He liked to draw his own conclusions about strange ladies who lived in magical artifacts. "Say that, for some unfathomable reason, I do need help with something. What exactly do you expect to do?"

She smiled mysteriously at him and said, "I couldn't help but notice you seem to be having a bit of an identity crisis. Would you like to talk about it?"

One could successfully compare Loki's reaction to a cat pushed into a sink. There was bristling, snarling, and desperate flailing as he tried to regain some semblance of composure. She was poking around in his mind. His _mind_ , which was strictly off limits to absolutely everybody. Who did this Delphi think she was? More importantly, how was he going to retaliate?

While Loki was stewing, Janie muttered to himself, "Heh! S'not just me, see? See!? Nobody wants ta talk 'bout stuff. If they did everyone'd be psychic and shrinks would rule the world." He made a ridiculously disgusted face, then raised his voice and continued, ""Sides, I don't wanna deal with Mr. Anger Manegenen…Management when his life plays by all sit-com like."

That stopped Loki cold in his revenge-plotting tracks. He had absolutely no desire to revisit any part of his life, with or without an audience. If any sort of life-viewing would be involved Loki needed to get out now.

If only he knew the way out. The Lady Delphi wouldn't tell him, she just wanted to prod him and was smiling patiently at him in a highly unnerving fashion while she waited for him to calm down. The only other person in the room was Janie, who had presumably escaped from this miserable place before since he was so put out to be back. He didn't seem like the kind of person who felt the need to sit and have civil conversations with mind-invading beings. In fact, he probably had figured out how to leave just to spite his apparent nemesis.

How fortuitous.

Loki shot a glance at Janie, mostly to catch his attention, and decided Delphi was most definitely doing something to him. Instead of the almost unstable energy he seemed to perpetually vibrate with, he was resting his elbows on his knees and looked as if he would like nothing more than to keel over and die. He listlessly toyed with what looked to be a pendant of some sort that had been previously tucked under his shirt, and blatantly ignored everybody in the room.

Fabulous. Now had to figure that out. Loki swept forward and sat in one of the armchairs in order to more properly observe Delphi. It was oddly relaxing to sit, which wasn't as worrying as it should have been. "What are you doing to him? It works wonders on his personality."

Her eyes drifted over to the pathetic huddle that currently constituted Janie and her serene expression crinkled slightly with regret. "I suppose you could say I've…calmed him down. It's the only way he'll stay civilized. He might hurt himself otherwise." She cast a guilty look at Loki. "He's just so sad he can barely move, and I need to get him to see it before I can help him get better."

"'M right here, ya know." Janie snapped, then slumped his way over to the unoccupied chair. He sprawled sideways into it and curled up around a throw pillow as soon as he was close, rather than sitting down like a normal person.

He looked more in pain than calm in Loki's opinion. Perhaps his fragile Midgardian mind was snapping under the strain of being twisted to suit Delphi's needs. It stood to reason minds would follow the unfortunate trend of Midgardian weakness, after all.

Shaking off the random speculation, Loki realized if she was influencing Janie's mind to 'help', she was probably doing the same thing to him. Which was both highly unacceptable and probably why he was fighting back the urge to mindlessly listen to whatever Delphi was saying. It wasn't exactly a normal impulse for an underhanded, manipulative God of Lies to have.

That wasn't the worrying part about the situation, Loki discovered. The worrying part was instead of having to fight back a rush of anger in order to maintain civility, his revelation prompted absolutely nothing. It was disconcerting to say the least.

Janie had apparently noticed as well, and willed himself into enough coherence to frown at Loki and irritably ask, "How come when I say anything ya go off like a firecracker and stomp off but she's 'lowed to mess with ya? 'S hypodermital if you ask me."

Oh, there was his irritation. Loki looked imperiously down his nose at Janie, "I believe the word you are trying and failing to use is 'hypocritical', which does not apply to this situation in the slightest."

"Does too." Janie sat up against the arm of the chair in an attempt to menacingly narrow his eyes at Loki. The tasseled pillow still clutched against his chest somewhat muted the already unthreatening action. "You're being contradictory, which is what hypocrisy basically is."

"No, hypocrisy is the act of doing what you have just told somebody else not to do. And I have not done that." Not that Loki wasn't a hypocrite at heart, but he refused to let Janie butcher the English language.

"But that's a contradiction!" Janie brandished the pillow with one hand while the other started to wildly gesticulate. "If I told you throwing pillows at people is wrong, and then I let somebody else heave a pillow at my head, that would be a hypocrisy, wouldn't it?"

"No, that is you being imbecilic. Hypocrisy is a purely internal occurrence. The actions of others towards you have no impact upon your personal beliefs." Loki paused a second in mock thought, and then sneered, "Or perhaps Midgardian minds lack the substance needed to avoid such tampering. It wouldn't surprise me."

"I know right!" Janie chirruped, which wasn't exactly the reaction Loki was trying to evoke but honestly wasn't surprising. "They're like sm-"

"Boys!" Delphi clapped her hands to regain their attention, then gave Janie a brilliant smile. "I didn't think you'd have gotten so far on your own. Janie dear, I'm so proud of you!"

Janie, once again showcasing his brilliant intellect, gaped incoherently. Loki's snort of derision snapped him back to reality, at which point he curled back up around his pillow and spat an indignant "What?"

His hostility went right over Delphi's head. "I didn't think you were ready for this kind of social interaction yet, but you made a friend!"

"A friend?" Now he was just staring in wide-eyed incomprehension.

"It's unconventional at best, but I wouldn't expect anything else from someone like you." She leaned towards Janie and ruffled his hair. He promptly recoiled and shielded himself from further contact with his trusty pillow.

"Like me? What's that supposed to mean?"

She smiled benevolently at him. "We still have to work on your people skills honey, but this is a step in the right direction."

Loki watched silently as he waited for Janie to realize what Delphi was talking about. After a couple of minutes of watching Janie parrot mindlessly he pinched the bridge of his nose and said, "She's talking about us, you dimwit."

"H…what?" The implications sank quickly in and Janie shot to his feet, bouncing slightly on the cushioned chair and stabbed a finger at Delphi. "What? No! We're not friends!"

"I'd have to agree."

"Friends are the most pointless things to ever walk the earth!"

"Exactly." Loki turned to face the befuddled woman and smiled apologetically. "I am afraid you were mistaken Lady Delphi. We are victims of circumstance and nothing more."

She gave him an unimpressed look and flatly asked, "You're a victim of friendship?"

"No," Janie corrected, "we're victims of company, which can sometimes be mistaken for friendship." Delphi waited for him to expand, but he just smiled beatifically at her. "You already know what happened. I'm not going to spell it out for you."

Loki found that declaration to be quite worrisome, considering the implied telepathy involved, and quietly demanded, "What does she know?"

"Everything." Janie's smile took on a distinctly vindictive edge, "She looks through your head like it's a book."

Well, that was a sickening thought. Before Loki could properly transition his panic to rage Delphi's smile sparked back into existence and she tugged on the hem of Janie's shirt with a delicately gloved hand. "Sit down honey, I've figured out how to help."

Janie promptly clenched his jaw and locked his knees, which made him look even more childish than usual. "No."

This did absolutely nothing to stop Delphi's good spirits from rising. If anything, she became even more excited than before and continued on as if Janie hadn't spoken. "Neither of you know how to keep going! I'll just have to do it for you."

"Nope." He viciously tugged his shirt out of her hand.

"Neither of you have enough friends to know what the next step is, so I'll just start you off and then I'll let you both go off on your merry way."

"Didn't you hear me? No! Nine! Ny-wait. Really?"

"Sure. I'll tell this nice man something about you, and I'll tell you something about him, and then you can discuss outside of here." She clasped her hands over her heart and gave them both a disturbingly heartfelt look. "It aught to do the both of you some good to have someone to talk to outside your own heads."

She received two incredibly unimpressed looks in response to that little comment, but forged on nonetheless. "Alright. I'll try to be quick, so don't start talking until you wake up." Turning gravely to Janie, Delphi said, "He let himself fall."

"Thor was to blame!" Loki snarled. There was simply no way he misremembered that, it was the crux of his entire...issue. Delphi gave him one of the most pity-filled looks he had ever received, and suddenly he was reliving the horrible memory all over again.

((()))

Holding onto life by the tips of his fingers and a burning need to explain, Loki stared desperately up at his father and Thor.

But he never got the chance to, did he? Thor let go and cast him into the void as soon as Loki opened his mouth.

Instead, he found himself trying to get Father to understand, to praise and forgive as he had always done with Thor whenever he had gone and done something oafish. It had all been for Asgard, couldn't they see that?

 _This wasn't how he remembered this happening._

Father's face twisted into something grim and pained, and Loki was sure he was about to make Thor toss him away like a used strip of parchment. That was what happened, after all. _Right?_

"No, Loki."

He remembered this now, but he didn't want to. His world shattered with those two words, made everything useless and lackluster because now he knew he was a monster. After all, Father always pardoned Thor's outrageous acts eventually. But he didn't have eventually.

With that declaration ringing in his ears, Loki did the only thing he could do.

He let go.

((()))

Loki snapped back into the softly glowing room with a sharp intake of breath. That had been…unexpected to say the least. But who was to say Delphi wasn't lying? She had already established a pattern of mental manipulation. Unfortunately, Loki was of the opinion that Delphi was telling the truth, which was getting in the way of his attempts to rationalize the confusion away.

Out of the corner of his eye Loki caught sight of Janie, who was curled up on the cushions with his eyes screwed shut, hands clapped over his ears. How very considerate of him, a small part of Loki's spinning brain noted, to try and block out what was presumably a group viewing of the most awful moment of his life.

Without giving Loki the time to recover, Delphi turned to him with a gentle smile and motioned to Janie. "He's a pathological liar."

Janie shot up so quickly he almost flailed out of his chair and hissed, "That's a _gross_ oversimplification." But the world dissolved away before anything else could be said.

((()))

AN: I bet you all thought I wasn't going to update, didn't you? Thanks to those who reviewed! It gives me the warm fuzzies when I hear that someone other than me is getting a kick out of this and makes me feel less like I'm yelling into an endless abyss full of monsters who are secretly laughing at me. I don't really know the etiquette for responding back to anonymous reviews, so I'll just do it down here:

Anonymous: Thank you so much! I don't know if I'd call this train-wreck 'magnificent', but I'm glad you like it. I really am trying to update with due diligence, and I hope I don't disappoint, but things are about to get crazy so I don't really want to make a concrete promise. As for the meeting betwixt Janie's brother and Loki...I've got plans. Not particularly _impressive_ plans, but plans nonetheless.


	12. Calumniation

Still don't own anything Marvel, despite my devious plans. Tally ho.

((()))

Everything was upside-down. After a few seconds it was ascertained that this was entirely the fault of the monstrosity that was Janie's couch. Loki was sprawled halfway off and rather uncomfortable, which he was blaming on the vindictive streak Janie had been concealing.

For a moment he stayed there, mentally piecing together his new reality in which _he_ had apparently let go and Thor had looked absolutely devastated when he did. He was still a monster, of course, but obviously he had overestimated some things. Surely if he were truly a monster, Thor wouldn't have looked so-

He shook his head, straightened himself out, and bit back a groan as almost every single muscle in his body seized up at the same time. So he'd been stationary for a while. How wonderful. On the bright side his magic seemed to be benefitting greatly from the forced inactivity.

In fact, Loki felt almost like his old self again. Teleportation, while probably not the healthiest idea, was no longer beyond his grasp. He could be rid of the ridiculous mortal in a wide and highly entertaining variety of ways, which was a very, very appealing thought.

But luckily for Janie he had offered his hospitality, and as depressing as the notion was it just wouldn't do retaliate with wanton destruction. Loki would just have to settle with leaving some sort of vaguely threatening message behind to keep the Midgardian in a constant state of terror for the rest of his pathetically short life.

Mind made up, Loki swept himself off the couch and unfurled his energy into the room to cause a little, just a _little_ wanton destruction when he disappeared. As a message, of course.

A startled yelp leapt from the kitchen, as well as what sounded suspiciously like a glass orb being cracked against a tabletop. "Give a guy some warning before you do that!"

Oh. That reminded him, he wanted to take a look around before he left, maybe have a talk with Janie about what, exactly, a pathological liar was. Loki refocused his magic around the room to look, rather than touch, and wandered into the kitchen just in time to see Janie storm down the hallway. On the table was the shattered remains of the Looking Glass, looking rather forlorn in the light sluggishly streaming through the window.

Janie was hemorrhaging magic everywhere. That was admittedly unexpected. It was like his magical core had been punctured and was leaking out into the world, which was impossible.

How intriguing!

There was nothing better than a good puzzle to take the mind off of an impending identity crisis. Loki listened to Janie snarling around his room while he slowly picked apart what could only be described as a magical field and waited patiently for Janie to reemerge.

Halfway through his examination, about when he discovered, much to his delight, there seemed to be a second layer of some sort, Janie stumped back in, shoved a large book into his arms emblazoned _PSYCHOLOGY_ , "Page two hundred and twenty one, it's _not_ accurate," wheeled around, and sat down in front of the shattered remains of the orb.

As Janie began to irritably shuffle around shards of glass, Loki leaned against a counter and flipped through the proffered book. It seemed to be a dissection of the human mind, and there was an absurd amount of ways it could malfunction, shatter, or bend. He momentarily considered reading the Identity chapter, but thought better of it. No need to spoil his mood.

Eventually Loki skimmed his way to page two hundred and twenty one, which was headed Psychopathy. He scanned the page until he caught sight of a paragraph labeled _Pathological Lying_ on page two hundred and twenty. Close enough, he supposed, that Janie could have just been mistaken, and promptly read it.

 **Pathological** **lying** can be described as a habituation of lying. It is when an individual consistently lies for no personal gain. The lies are commonly transparent and often seem rather pointless. The individual may be aware they are lying, or may believe they are telling the truth, being unaware that they are relating fantasies.

Loki shot a covert glance over at Janie, who was most emphatically not looking in his direction and slowly piecing the broken sphere back together with unwavering focus. He was wielding a small tube of adhesive, and didn't even look up as he said, "I won't ask about that whole bridge fiasco if you don't ask about the lying thing."

So he had seen that after all. Loki was so numb to surprise at the moment he couldn't even begin dealing with the fact that he had apparently lied well enough to fool himself. But he simply couldn't help it. "Just one question," he insisted.

Janie heaved a put-upon sigh, and turned slightly towards Loki. "Not like I could stop you."

"What have you lied to me about?" He prodded. It seemed to be a touchy subject, and he needed a bit of entertainment.

"You're the God of Lies here, you tell me," was the waspish reply, and Janie snapped his attention back to his little project, which was starting to resemble a real orb.

Loki took that as an invitation to sit down at the table as well, mostly to get a better look at Janie. Hemorrhaging wasn't quite the right word, now that he was closer. It would be more accurate to say magic was just uselessly clouding around Janie, like it didn't belong to him.

Having decided to ignore Loki for the time being, Janie leaned backwards in his chair to rummage around for something while glaring heatedly at the Looking Glass as if it had personally offended him. He came back victoriously wielding tweezers, and began to slot the tinier pieces of glass back into place while muttering things like "Why on earth he made this thing hollow is beyond me," and "Of all the people I had to find on the street…"

After a few more moments of contemplation, Loki had a theory. He released a tiny bit of magic completely into the air, just letting it float there, and watched in fascination as it immediately began to gravitate towards Janie and became a vibrant speck in the field. It didn't go unnoticed by Janie, who twitched minutely and grimaced at what was presumably an odd sensation.

Midgardians may have developed quite a lot in the years Loki had been away, but that was just unnatural. As was Janie's ability to seamlessly put a shattered glass bubble back together in under ten minutes, but that was beside the point.

"Was one of the lies that you weren't a mutant?" Maybe he just automatically absorbed loose energy around him. From what Loki had read it was feasible, and even recorded in a child named 'Leech'.

"Eheh." Janie dug out a dishtowel and began to carefully smooth out edges on the orb. "No. I lied to you about where I got my manners, when my test is, and the number of mutant fosterlings we've had, but not myself. Trust me, it would have made my childhood much easier."

"If you're not a mutant, then what are you?"

The question startled Janie into fumbling the Looking Glass, and when he came back up from the near catastrophe he glowered and insisted, "A _human_. With an x and a y chromosome and everything. I don't know why everybody suddenly thinks otherwise."

Suddenly. How interesting. "So this is a recent occurrence?"

"That is a whole bucket of none of your business. Besides, I thought you were gonna leave, what with the whole teleporty magic thing you had going on. The wave of destruction would have been rude, you know." He stood and started to meander his way into the sitting room, but was promptly blocked by Loki standing and casually leaning in the doorway.

"How do you know I was about to teleport? Perhaps I was just stretching out after imprisonment in that ridiculous contraption of yours."

Janie mirrored Loki's stance against the counter, squirreling away said contraption in a cutlery drawer and tilting his head to look Loki in the eye. "I know about six different people who can teleport, so I'd like to think I know what it feels like. There isn't anything recent about that."

Loki supposed teleportation did have a certain flavor, if one were looking for it, so he kept digging and added, "And I am deeply wounded you would even insinuate that I would harm my host in such a fashion."

He received a deeply unimpressed look for that particular comment. "So you were just gonna leave all of that shiny new magic you just got back here with me, huh? How kind."

Tired of having to look upwards at Loki, Janie hopped up on a previously tucked-away stool, which gave him a good extra five inches or so and made them slightly more even. Not by much though, so when Janie tried to level an imperious look at Loki it fell somewhat flat. The failure of the look had absolutely no impact on Janie's attempt to scowl Loki out of the way, and Loki readily reciprocated the expression.

Their impromptu staring contest was rudely interrupted by an irritating chirrup. The noise startled Janie so badly he flinched right off of his perch and almost into Loki, who stepped quickly backwards to avoid any sort of contact with Janie. He wasn't sure contact would be the wisest thing, considering.

Ignoring Loki's sudden retreat, Janie rummaged around on the counter for a small block with buttons on it, and pushed one labeled _Talk_ near the bottom. A communication device.

"Hey Kiki." Janie didn't sound particularly enthused to be involved in the conversation. He leaned listlessly against the counter and continued, "What? No. I'm fine…I fixed it already, you can check…No, nothing happened…Yes, I'm sure…I'm a pathological liar, not a pathological murderer, tell Ralph that for me, will you?...Oh, it stopped snowing? Cool…No, I can't come to dinner with you, I'm busy…I have company…You want to meet them? Um, one second."

Janie cupped his hand over the mouthpiece and turned to Loki, "How do you feel about real food?"

All he got was a derisive eyebrow in response.

"Like, steak and veal and salad and stuff."

"Why?" Loki drawled. There had to be a catch of some sort. Although anything not from a box sounded divine.

"An apology for the whole Delphi thing?" Janie looked miserably hopeful at the prospect of some company. "Can we do semantics later? It's a yes or no. Also, it's free and you have to order the most expensive thing on the menu."

He couldn't see a downside to this situation. "Very well."

Janie almost melted with relief, and put the device back to his ear. "He says he'll come, but only if you're paying…Ok…How about Calcifer's?...It was smashed?…But the Empire…I'm not wearing a suit…But all of mine have at least three holes in them…Fine…Siðar."

Loki refocused on Janie at the oddly familiar phrase, to which Janie pushed the _End_ button and defensively snapped, "What?"

That had definitely been Norse. As was Birgir's name. How odd. "Where did you say you were from, again?"

"I didn't. But I'm from Oklahoma, so stop looking at me like that." Janie dropped the device back on the counter, turned on his heel, and headed towards his room. "We have to be there in a half hour or so, so you might want to get ready."

What a subtle subject change. No matter, he had different questions to ask anyway. Didn't Janie say a Kiki made the Looking Glass? "Who was that, exactly? And where do you think you're going?"

Janie kept walking, but when he reached his door he turned and said, "I need to find pants without holes in them, or he won't feed me. And that was my brother."

"He made you that _thing_? Why?" Even Loki wouldn't gift that blasted orb to Thor. He followed Janie to the doorway and watched him perch delicately on a pile of debris and rifle through the clothes for something appropriate, which reminded him, "And what exactly is the dress expectation?"

"You're not having trouble focusing on one thing are you? Because that's a sign of brain damage," Janie sniped. He eventually emerged from the clothes pile with a well-worn pair of brown, pocket laden pants. "He gave it to me because he thought it would help me re-enter society and he's disgustingly optimistic." Briefly holding up the pants to his greyish jacket and white shirt, Janie shrugged and decided it was good enough. "And I think you'd be fine in that suit thing you did while we were playing cards. But I'd drop the scarf if I were you."

Alright then. Easy enough, but the scarf was going to stay. He liked it, and refused to take fashion advice from a man who only needed two boxes to hold all of his clothes. Small boxes. Loki retreated back into the kitchen and replaced his battle gear with a nicely tailored suit. While he tweaked everything to be more to his liking, he pondered his new information on Janie.

He had suffered a trauma of some kind Delphi had needed to fix, which had driven him mad if his current behavior was anything to go by, and was probably connected to the apparently recent and bizarre magical phenomena surrounding him. Loki hadn't noticed it before by virtue of being so out of sorts that he had needed to be sincerely looking for something like that to notice it, but now he knew it was there and he wanted to know what Janie had done to himself.

Of course, Loki could just force Janie to tell him everything he wanted to know, but then he wouldn't have anything to take his mind off of the issue of Thor and Asgard. He wasn't quite ready to return to reality yet, and Janie was an excellent distraction.

Janie chose that moment to speak up. "Do you want a mirror, or can we go? We've got to get moving or we'll have to take the bus."

"How are we getting there then?" The bus sounded like a machine of some sort, and obviously Janie wasn't fond of it. It was probably unpleasant.

"Walking," was the blunt reply.

Janie breezed past Loki and towards the front door. His progress halted as Loki declared, "I refuse to go walking around the city without knowing anything. Where is this place located?"

Muttering something under his breath that sounded suspiciously like _Drama Queen_ , Janie skulked back into his room and reemerged with a tattered map, which he unfolded on the kitchen table and beckoned Loki over to. Loki grudgingly looked down at the map, and Janie began explaining.

"We're here," he tapped an area labeled Harlem, "and we're going down to here." He traced down to an area near what seemed to be a forest in the middle of the city.

Loki stared at him flatly. He utterly refused to walk that far for a meal. "What is the exact address of this place?"

"Madison Avenue," chirped Janie. "Why?"

Instead of answering the question, Loki mentally mapped out the city and debated the merits of leaving Janie here and just teleporting himself. It would be a stretch, but he'd have some peace. Then he'd be forced to wait for Janie to catch up, which would take much too long.

Sensing an eruption in the air, Janie began to slowly back away from Loki in an attempt to escape the blast radius, but didn't even have time to react when Loki suddenly decided to just teleport them both there and promptly did so.

((()))

Well. That had been fun.

As soon as they arrived at an alleyway across the street from their destination, Janie stumbled in the deep snow and braced himself against the nearest wall, trying his best to not fall over. He wasn't doing very well with that particular goal.

Loki looked on in amusement and mild curiosity as Janie tried to deal with the sudden influx of magic. Apparently his teleportation wasn't as efficient as he thought it was. "Are you alright?"

Eventually Janie gave up his battle with gravity and slid down the wall, where he was promptly swallowed up in a snowdrift." _Megingjarðar._ "

"You are horribly inconsistent. _Megingjarðar_?"

"I'm having a bad day, okay? And you try thinking straight when your brain's doing backflips." Janie took a deep breath and forced himself to stand, dripping snow and glaring at Loki all the while. "Whatever happens in the restaurant is your fault. I'm just putting that out right now."

Loki just smirked condescendingly down at him and started to forge a trail towards their destination, "Come along now, we wouldn't want to be late."

Janie grudgingly followed behind Loki until they had nearly reached the doors into the establishment, at which point Loki caught sight of the elegant interior through the truly magnificent windows. He stopped and glanced back at the shabby-looking and soaked Janie with his jacket at least three sizes too large, horrifically casual pants, and boots that were more patches than anything else, and announced, "I refuse to be affiliated with you."

"Well good for you. I refuse to be affiliated with me too, but nobody listens," groused Janie. He slunk over to one of the black pillars framing the entrance and leaned against it, flicking a hand back at Loki. "You can go in first, and then I'll come in in five minutes or so if you really want. I'll be right here when you're done trying to find my brother. Tell them you're with the Katsar party, and they'll let you in."

Scoffing, Loki braved some truly absurd spinning doors in order to get inside. Janie had a very distinctive appearance, surely his brother couldn't be too unrecognizable. He just needed to find a taller, more friendly-looking version of Janie, and the problem would be solved.

He politely introduced himself to the servants as part of the 'Katsar' party, to which they looked ridiculously pleased and directed him to the left back corner of the almost deserted room. This would be over before Janie's five minutes were even up.

((()))

AN: Sorry for not posting this before, I was dead when I updated. I don't actually speak this language, so don't hold me to any of this.

Siðar-Goodbye

Megingjarðar- Thor's Girdle of Strength. I'm using it as an expression of shock/surprise because it feels like something I'd shout if I were dumped into a snowdrift by an inconsiderate teleporter and knew the language.


	13. Equivocate

:Insert Disclaimer Here:

After that, enjoy.

((()))

It was not. Loki cast around for anyone with even a fleeting resemblance of Janie, but he could see no one that could have even been distantly related. But that might have been because every person in the room looked like a respectable member of society. He meandered through the tables in a covert attempt to hear something that would point him in the right direction, but achieved nothing except learning about some sort of gala happening within a few months. Interesting, but useless.

Maybe he shouldn't have been looking for similarities. After all, he and Thor were…not related. At all. There went his mood.

Right about when Loki was ready to storm back out and demand a description of some sort from Janie, he glanced out of the corner of his eye just in time to see Janie enter, looking supremely amused by the disgusted looks the help was giving his outfit. He looked more like someone who should be working in the kitchens then the actual staff did, for Odin's sake.

Turning to shoot Janie a truly venomous glare, Loki happened to spot a table ensconced in a corner with somebody waving cheerfully at Janie from across the room. Presumably one was the brother, and thus his identification problem was solved. The waver looked rather terrifyingly like Heimdall for a moment until he stood with a smile and started towards Janie, which threw his dark features into a softer light. He was a bit too rounded to be the angry gatekeeper, despite being almost tall and wide enough, and had far too much hair. There was also a pale streak of a scar that went across his nose and perilously close to his eye, and Loki was fairly certain it was impossible for Heimdall to even get injured.

The other man, presumably Janie's brother, wasn't tall or short with a shock of bright red hair, a hooked nose, and more freckles than skin. He didn't look particularly pleased to see Janie, but when they made eye-contact Janie practically lit up with joy. It was odd, considering the feud that was supposed to be going on.

All of this speculation was promptly flushed down the drain when the large, dark, absolute-opposite-of-Janie man threw his arms wide opened with a joyous "Lil bro!" and smothered Janie's mildly frenzied "Wait _waitwait_ " in a bone-crushing hug.

What.

He glanced at the irritable redhead for a second, perhaps to see if he'd finally started hallucinating, but no, the man was glaring at the two apparent brothers with open suspicion and nursing his drink like their antics were a particularly aggravating everyday occurrence.

 _What_.

The world had officially stopped making sense. Eventually the tabled man noticed their shared focus and asked, "Hey, you that friend of his?"

Stiffly shaking himself back to reality, Loki fixed his attention on the much less confusing man and corrected, "Acquaintance. May I sit?"

"Go for it man, anyone who can deal with that psycho deserves to sit down. Wine?" He brandished an expensive-looking bottle at Loki, who nodded affably as he slid into the russet seat and endeavored to look as befuddled as possible.

The man gifted him with a commiserating smile and stuck out his hand. "I'm Ralph, Ralph Craigs. Don't think too hard about those two, or your brain will break in half. I guess Janie didn't fill you in."

"Lukas Senna. I don't want to sound rude," Loki hedged, "but they don't quite look..." He let the sentence hang in the air.

Ralph didn't disappoint, scoffing, "Related? That's because they're not. Janie's adopted."

Loki's shock must have been far more visible than he had thought, because Ralph continued, "Yeah, it's weird, but where he's from being adopted is just like being born somewhere, and Krow wouldn't leave him alone anyway."

"Where is he from? He claimed to hail from Oklahoma." How fortuitous. More distractions.

"A friendly word of advice," Ralph leaned forwards conspiratorially, "whatever he says is a lie somehow. Don't believe a word he says unless he has at least three character witnesses and a random bystander backing him up."

Loki pulled up his best betrayed look. He was rather good at them, if he did say so himself. "So he's not from Oklahoma? Why would he lie about that?"

"It's nothing personal, his brain's just wired wrong, can't tell sometimes which question he's answering or which words make it out of his mind intact. We grew up in Oklahoma." He was just so _earnest_ about everything, from his apologetic wince to offering up a wine glass. It was grating. "But he's actually from Iceland, or Norway, or something like that. I can't remember."

They refocused their attentions on the two 'brothers' as the taller one, presumably the Kiki people kept going on about, released Janie and started walking back towards the table. Janie looked like he was seriously considering running back out into the snow, but eventually trailed over to the table as well. Loki took the silent moment to ponder over his new discovery and sipped some wine.

Iceland? Norway? He'd been to both. Nice places, if one could overcome their near-constant state of being overrun by various unfriendly magical creatures. Their ale was better than the wine here, at any rate. Not quite as fruity.

Why had Janie been so adamant he was from Oklahoma, wherever that was, when he obviously wasn't? It wasn't a frivolous lie, he was genuinely trying to hide information from Loki. Excellent. He might even be clever enough to almost succeed.

Janie slumped into the seat across from a steaming Ralph and a scheming Loki, looking resigned to his fate, and started to listlessly flip through a menu in a valiant effort to avoid any kind of conversation. It wasn't going too well honestly, but Loki understood the sentiment.

The large man stuck his hand out across the table, much like Ralph had, and said, "Hey, I'm Croesus, but you can call me Krow."

"Lukas," replied Loki, reciprocating the handshake, which earned him an incredulous snort from Janie. "If you don't mind, how did Krow come from Croesus? They don't sound remotely like each other." It had been a while since he'd had to endure small talk, but it was about as tedious as he remembered. He could have brought up the adopted state of Janie, but that hit a bit too close to home.

Krow sent him a bright smile and toyed with a fork. "At school, they'd always read it as _Crow_ -ees-us, instead of _Cree_ -sus, and so I just started being Krow. Ralph gave it a 'k', because apparently he can hear the difference between a 'c' and a 'k', and here we are. Mom had a bit of a thing for mythology, as you probably figured out."

"How would I have been able to figure that out, exactly? I've only just met you." Loki sensed a new tidbit of information on the horizon, and so said, "Do you have brothers and sisters other than Janie?"

A single eyebrow shot up on Krow's forehead, and he turned to frown disapprovingly at Janie. "You told him your name was Janie? I thought you were working on that."

"Is my name," Janie grumbled from behind his menu, steadfastly avoiding all eye-contact. "I didn't lie to him."

"Yes you did Jay, you have to tell people your real name, not your nickname, or else they won't actually know who you are." Krow was also disgustingly good at being earnest. No wonder Janie hadn't wanted to come on his own. He probably would have choked on all the good will in the air.

"I am a man of _many_ names," Janie, as he was currently known, declared as he tilted his chair back and swung his feet up onto the table. Ralph twitched.

"We both know that's not true, so stop trying to sell it to me." Krow sent him one last unimpressed look before turning to Loki, who, realizing Janie was blatantly using him as a shield and making it seem like a favor, shot Janie a glare. The little idiot just smiled merrily back at him and began to rock slightly on the two remaining legs of his chair.

"I know you have problems with trusting or whatever it is," Ralph, who apparently decided the conversation was his business, added, "but you have to tell people the truth."

It was like having two sentimental Thors at the table at once. A horrifying prospect if there ever was one, and Loki eased up his glowering ever so slightly. He'd want backup as well if he had to deal with these two.

The contest of wills between Krow, Ralph, and Janie was broken suddenly by the appearance of a nervous waitress who had come to take their orders. She looked like she'd rather be hiding than taking orders, but patiently stood there as Janie sent her a winning smile and ordered a fruit cup with _just strawberries_ and a glass of milk and the other three hastily scanned through the menus. The waitress blinked in confusion for a moment, but moved on to her other customers shortly.

Krow politely asked for their famous Empire Burger, with everything and the usual side, which was evidently quite a lot judging from the surprised look from the waitress. He claimed he wanted to take leftovers home for his mother and wife who couldn't make it.

Ralph smiled shyly at her and asked if they still carried the tofu special? She smiled back and nodded, at which point Ralph asked for a special and a fruit platter for the whole table.

Loki had been trying to decide if it was a good idea to order the escargot, just to see what it was exactly, when Janie had leaned over and pointed at an entry labeled _STEAK_. They all looked absolutely amazing, but Loki ordered a rather expensive ribeye of some sort. This earned him an admiring look from the waitress as she complimented him on his taste, which he already knew was impeccable but smiled back charmingly anyway.

When the waitress left, looking pleasantly flustered, the oppressive atmosphere returned with a vengeance and Janie continued to sunnily ignore it. To be honest, it was getting ridiculous. Couldn't they just let each other sit in peace?

On the other hand, Loki still hadn't discovered the fabled 'real' name of Janie, so maybe this would work out. "So what is his name, then, if not Janie?" He asked innocently while blatantly ignoring Janie's suddenly blistering glare.

"Oh yeah." Krow transferred his gaze to Loki and declared, "He's Janus."

Loki looked dubiously at Janie, who was sadly bereft of a menu to cower behind and so shrugged and airily said, "It's a stupid name. I don't like it, so it's not mine."

Fair enough.

The conversation soon stalled, and the rest of the time before their meal arrived was spent awkwardly trying to coexist and ignoring the fact that Janie looked about ready to self-terminate from boredom. His feet were still up on the table, giving everyone a stellar view of the badly patched and mud encrusted soles slowly dripping onto the table. Ralph looked like he dearly wanted to shove them off.

Janie, noticing the ire being directed at him, started to hum a little ditty and made his feet do a little dance on the tabletop. He flicked some mud directly at Ralph, which whizzed past his rapidly reddening face.

Much to Loki's disappointment, Krow spoke up seconds before Ralph came to a boil. "Why don't you get new boots, Jay? These ones are falling apart."

"Hmm?" Janie looked up reluctantly and glanced at his boots. "'M broke."

" _I_ 'm broke, Janie," ground out Ralph.

"Really?" Janie, because Janus was an entirely too dignified name for him in Loki's humble opinion, sent the irritated man a concerned look. "You shouda gave me a call, 'cause I know lotsa tricks."

Ralph bristled. "You know that's not what I meant! You _should have given_ me a call."

"Why? I though you liked to take the 'nitiative."

" _Initiative_! I like the initiative."

""Sactly Ralph, and I don't vanna interlude or anythin'," Janie had inexplicably started to roll his r's, and Krow looked torn between laughing and crying, "but I think you need some serendipitous-"

" _Serious_!"

"Spurious help with yer trust issues if ya don't tell friends yer broke."

The declaration shocked Ralph into gaping and before he could recover and respond, or, more likely, explode, Krow intervened. "Alright you two, stop it. We have a guest, and he didn't come to watch you wind Ralph up, Jay." He turned to Loki with an apologetic shrug as Ralph quietly hissed something at Janie. "Sorry about them. It's how they express affection."

Loki didn't mind. Wordplay was always entertaining, but if that was affection then Loki was a bilgesnipe. Speaking up, Loki assured Krow, "It's no problem. Although I am curious; why, exactly, does Janie have an accent?"

"He didn't have it around you?" Krow sent a suspicious look at Janie, who was delightedly waggling his toes in front of Ralph's nose from across the table. "English is his second language, so sometimes he has problems getting words to sound like he wants them to. He must like you if he's trying to be intelligible."

It must be so tedious to have to learn an entire language. Yet another reason he was superior to Midgardians. Loki decided to keep the conversation alive while they waited for Ralph to snap and murder Janie. "So Norwegian is his first language?"

"Yeah. Norwegian." Krow shot Loki a nervous smile and promptly changed the subject. "So where are you from, if you don't mind me asking?"

Janie chose to re-enter the conversation, momentarily ceasing his little game. "He's from Iceland," he chirped, "here on a business trip. He got lost on his way back to the hotel afore the storm, and I let him stay at my place til' it stopped."

The fact that Janie was willfully and maliciously mutilating the English language didn't even matter, because Krow was lying, and wasn't it just adorable that he thought he could get away with it? No matter. It wouldn't be half as fun to fish information from Krow, he probably felt so guilty about lying even the slightest pressure would have him spilling his guts.

Loki watched in detached interest as Ralph worked through the impulse to attack Janie with a fork, and Krow tried to talk both Janie and Ralph out of a fork-fight to the death. Norwegian didn't seem to be far off from the truth, but if Janie just spoke some off-shoot then Krow would have corrected him. What was close to Norwegian?

As Loki pondered, Ralph had finally had enough. He seized Janie's foot and sent his irritant tumbling towards the floor. Janie didn't seem too concerned by his situation judging by his unrepentant cackle, although he might have been laughing because he almost took out their food-laden waitress on the way down.

Either way, seconds before the disastrous collision the chair stopped in midair. Just stopped. It was quite perplexing, at least until Loki caught sight of Krow's outstretched hand. Janie had said he was a mutant, after all. Apparently he was telekinetic, which, according to Janie's comprehensive notes, was usually paired with…telepathy.

The restaurant had gone oddly silent, Loki distantly noted.

He didn't want to deal with another telepath yet. Loki sunk into a bit of a brood as he plotted various ways to keep that as the status quo. Now magic was once again an option, it shouldn't be too hard to whip something up.

"Hey," Ralph interrupted Loki's scheming by handing him his meal, "Is he telling the truth?"

"Mostly, yes." He sent the once more grounded Janie a challenging glare and added, "But I was not lost. I simply miscalculated the distance to my lodging and got caught in the blizzard."

"And he let you into his apartment?" Ralph was looking grudgingly impressed. "That must have taken some fast talking."

Loki smiled mysteriously and turned to his meal in tandem with the rest of the table. It looked delicious, it smelled delicious, and once he finally took a bite, it tasted _divine_. If anyone started to squabble and forced Loki to intervene they would be murdered. No two ways about it.

Luckily for the collective health of the table, everybody seemed to be too enraptured by their own meals to interact.

Except Janie. He was swirling his strawberries around, thoroughly saturating them with milk, and looking generally unimpressed with the world. But he wasn't trying to needle anyone into starting a screaming match, and that was a definite step up. The table finally, for the first time that night, relaxed.

Sadly, the silence just couldn't last. Krow glanced up at Janie from his demolished burger and scoffed, "What are you, a cat?"

Loki had never wanted to slam his forehead into the tabletop so much in his life. Was this what Sif and the Warriors Three felt like when Loki decided to join them? No, he had never been so blatantly obvious about his animosity. They had no excuse.

Janie just sent his company a lazy, half-lidded smile and started to…rumble. Was that a _purr_? Unbelievable.

Ralph almost choked on his salad, eyes wide. What did he think was going to happen, exactly? He looked like he was actually expecting Janie to turn into a panther and maul him. Which would be ridiculous. Amusing, but ridiculous.

Maybe Loki could arrange something…

The somewhat desperate scheme for entertainment was drawn short as Ralph turned quickly from the rather malevolently smiling Janie and asked, "So, how's Iceland this time of year?"

"Cold," Loki shortly replied. He didn't come here to socialize with stupid Midgardians, he came here to eat actual food. He couldn't comprehend how Janie had managed to survive on his diet for so long. Maybe that was why he was so scrawny.

"Oh." Ralph's pathetic attempt at conversation dwindled and left behind awkward, blessed silence.

Finally, a Midgardian that could take a hint! Miracles did exist.

"So is that why you came out to the US?" Krow, unfortunately, decided to cut through the rather oppressive atmosphere. "You looking to move out here?"

He was fishing for something, and Loki was game. "Perhaps. Although the snow has somewhat dissuaded me of the merits of New York."

"Yeah…but it's not usually like this. Usually it's a lot sunnier."

Janie decided to stop terrorizing Ralph and asked, "Hey, what's goin' on anyways?"

"We had a bit of an invasion." Krow flicked a dismissive finger at Janie and turned back to Loki, who was not impressed with that explanation.

Neither was Janie, apparently. "By what? Snow fairies? Old Man Winter?"

Krow looked rather like he had eaten a sour grape. "Jotuns."

Janie was looking unduly delighted at Krow's discomfort. "How bad?"

"Not that bad, actually," Krow shared a glance with Ralph, and apparently finding what he was looking for, went ahead. "They were too busy looking for this blue boxy thing to really go after anyone, so the damage is pretty minimal."

The Casket of Ancient Winters. It had to be, considering the blizzard. Was it lost when Thor, the immeasurable oaf, decided to be _noble_ and break the Bifröst?

The conversation continued around Loki as he pondered the possibility. To launch the Casket into the void the bridge would have had to not only break, but _shatter_ into millions of little pieces, perhaps snapping under its own weight and catapulting the control hub away. Asgard would be cut off from allies, trade routes, everything.

In other words, _absolutely perfect_. They would need alternate ways to reach the rest of the universe if they wanted to survive, provided to them by an ever so altruistic sorcerer, namely himself. A little hesitancy would be expected, of course, after the entire debacle with the jötnar, but they would be desperate enough to accept his help. And that was all he needed.

 _Or_. Or the Casket of Ancient Winters was retrieved from the Bifröst, which meant Asgard was most likely razed to the ground by vengeance-seeking jötnar in order for it to have ended up on Midgard. The fools probably thought they were taking back what was rightfully theirs, only to have it tossed off of the remnants of the Bifröst by the disgustingly gallant Thor. He could work with that.

"And we caught a jotun," Ralph boasted. "We think it's the leader, actually. S.H.I.E.L.D. is questioning it now."

That snapped Loki back to the conversation fairly quickly. All of his scheming would be for naught if he had assumed wrong. There was a surprising number of 'boxy blue things' floating around the universe, and that jotun would be able to tell him everything he needed to know.

Before Loki could go about finding the location of their hapless prisoner, Janie narrowed his eyes at Krow and hissed, "You're working with _them_?"

Ralph flinched backwards as Krow winced and tried to explain, "It's not a permanent thing, bud. You know I wouldn't do that after what they tried to pull."

A few seconds passed as the two engaged in a battle of wills, until Janie grudgingly folded under the weight of his brother's gaze.

"I'm surprised they let you off their flying death trap is all." Janie seemed to accept their reasons, but grumbled darkly, "They're probably still up there with your jotun, skulking around and looking for people to disappear."

Loki couldn't help it, he glanced covertly up at the ceiling. As did Krow.

"You know what that is, Janie?" Ralph heaved a sigh and pushed his plate away, "Paranoia. Have you been seeing Dr. Kipper like you promised? Because he's supposed to be helping you stabilize, and you don't seem all that stable to me."

More distractions. That was alright with Loki. With a sidelong glance at Janie, he asked, "What is he a doctor of, exactly?"

Janie took a vicious bite out of one of his strawberries instead of answering as both Krow and Ralph shot him disapproving looks. When it became obvious to him none of them would stop staring until he answered, he shrugged and swallowed. "Medicine."

When Ralph took in a sharp breath Janie hurriedly corrected himself. " _Mental_ medicine."

While Loki mulled over this rather unsurprising piece of information, Krow, Janie, and Ralph were having another staring contest. Most likely, Loki decided, a telepathic conversation of sorts.

He stared in equal parts irritation and fascination as all three faces progressively darkened. Were they so uncivilized as to exclude a guest from the conversation? That was just unacceptable. He hadn't had a good family drama he could laugh at in months, and it wouldn't be too hard to hear just a _little_.

With a covert flick of his wrist, Loki tapped into the very fringes of his host's awareness. All three were too embroiled in their discussion to notice or particularly care that they had an eavesdropper, but Janie's forehead creased in mild confusion. Probably an effect of Loki using magic instead of 'mental energy', as Janie's papers claimed was usually used.

What was surprising was the fact that Ralph seemed to be the source of the telepathy, not Krow.

"I'm serious." Ralph's voice was oddly faint, but insistent. "If you don't start taking this seriously we _will_ take you back home."

"You're ignoring your guest." Janie's voice sullenly echoed around as if in a large cavern, which was entirely possible, Loki admitted, if Ralph had created some sort of mental meeting place.

Krow continued on as if Janie hadn't spoken. "You need to face up to the consequences, Jay. What you did was bad, and you need to work at earning our trust back."

"Bad is such an undescriptive word, don't you think? Makes it sound like I chewed up the rug or something. Are you going to hit me with a newspaper?" Janie was ignoring them with malicious glee, set on _not_ discussing whatever they were alluding to.

Just as Loki was going to forcibly break up their little chat, and perhaps needle some answers out of people, Krow slammed his hand on the table and sent his water toppling over, spilling on himself and Ralph. Janie declared, "I'm late for work," and sped away from the table.

After offering Krow his napkin, Ralph buried his head in his hands and breathed in deeply. Krow cast him a reproachful glare. "You just _had_ to bring that up, didn't you? We almost made it all the way to dessert this time."

Ralph glowered back through his fingers. " _You_ try pretending he's stable when he's going for gold in emotional gymnastics."

Alright, Loki had been ignored for long enough. He rapped sharply on the table to draw their attention. "Yes, hello. If you don't mind me asking, what are emotional gymnastics?"

Instead of actually answering the question, Krow lit up and asked, "You and Jay are friends, right?"

"Acquaintances." Was the immediate reply from both Ralph and Loki, but that didn't seem to phase Krow in the slightest.

"Could you, I don't know, go talk to him? He seems to like you, and we're pretty much done here." His hopeful look dimmed somewhat at Loki's flat stare, but he forged on. "He doesn't have a shift tonight and I'm afraid he'll do something stupid."

How adorable, he was trying to appeal to Loki's better nature.

Ralph was also unimpressed with Krow's appeal, and so added, "We walked here so Janie's your only way to the hotel, unless you want to wander around."

Luckily for Krow, he had to go find this 'shield' before they decided to kill the jotun.

"Have a good evening, gentlemen." Loki smoothly stood and walked out as an argument escalated behind him. Before he could do anything, the alleged blue box had to be found. It was obviously magical, whatever it was, and wouldn't be too hard to find for someone of Loki's talents. He started to walk in a random direction and started to sweep the city for magical signatures.

Loki, to his eternal irritation, discovered New York was apparently a veritable hub of magical activity and decided to blame it on Janie. He was, quite frankly, a beacon in the middle of the city. It was a wonder nobody had bothered him yet.

Not that finding Janie would serve any sort of purpose for a mage, as far as Loki could tell he was just a big useless magical sponge. Now if someone else could _tap into_ that magic…

For a moment Loki considered going after Janie. It would be good fun, but just another excuse to avoid doing actual work. The chance that he would be useful was astronomically small, and Asgard wasn't going to overthrow itself.

In fact, as far as Loki could figure, there was absolutely no reason for the two of them to ever meet again.

Mind made up, Loki turned his attention to two, no three very strong, very close together, and very airborne signatures. _Of course_ Thor had to find the stupid thing first, what with his ridiculous hammer and charisma. He probably was the reason this Midgardian city was still standing. There was no way Loki could just waltz into Janie's flying death trap now, no matter how pathetic the defenses were. He didn't feel like being beaten into a pulp by Mjolnir until he had time to make preparations.

Loki glared off several shady looking characters and continued walking through the damaged and snow-smothered streets. He'd have to run into some sort of lodgings eventually.

On the bright side, that was most definitely not the Casket of Ancient Winters. That was the Tesseract, and he could do so much more with that sort of power. No wonder the jötnar had been trying so hard to find it. How did it even end up on Midgard in the first place?

No matter. Loki wasn't going to be able to get it any time soon, and that left him rather stranded.

New order of first business: find a base of operation. Loki could start putting out tendrils and find something else to both help him get back to Asgard and possibly help him exact revenge, because revenge was always given top priority.

Focusing back in on his surroundings, Loki spotted two rather miserable and wrapped up Midgardians trudging towards a building down the street. They hadn't noticed him, and he entered earshot just as one snapped at the other, "Why do we live here again?"

The other, unaffected by her friend's anger, sniffed haughtily and said, "Because we can. Are you saying you _don't_ like having your own bathroom?"

"I never said that! It's just so far from everything."

"Get a taxi."

"The taxis aren't working right now, if you haven't noticed."

"Well, get a bike."

The complainer stopped and gestured pointedly at the impenetrable layer of snow.

"Rent a snowplow." The other stubbornly kept walking.

"I can't! Do you know why? Because all of my money goes towards your stupid penthouse."

The rest of their argument was cut off as they entered the building that was allegedly their place of residence. It was, as far as giant blocks of concrete went, a rather nice building, disregarding the missing chunk at the top that looked like something had crashed into it. There was a myriad of windows, some light and some dark, covering every side Loki could see. He sincerely doubted those two occupied the entire building, and so multiple rooms would have to be available. Like Janie's home, but infinitely nicer.

After a moment of weighing the pros, which were many, and the cons, which were negligible, Loki walked into the building and towards the man at the front desk, intent on getting a 'penthouse' for himself.

((()))

AN: So there was my un-reveal about Janie, there you go. You might want to get used to that feeling of being unfulfilled. But, on the bright side, I've managed to separate Loki off so he can go do plot relevant stuff now. Yay!


	14. Repudiation

I'm not sure this is necessary anymore, but I've only got what jumped out of my brain. Advance!

((()))

He did manage to get lodgings eventually. The amount of bureaucracy involved with the process had been ridiculous, and it took some fast talking and minor enchantments to convince both the man at the front desk and his supervisor, a rather terrifying woman, that he was a legal citizen of the United States and he could pay them.

It was furnished, which included a wonderful and properly sized couch, and he got a fantastic view of the city through a rather magnificent bay window. Admittedly, it was just begging to be smashed, but Loki held the possible cost was well worth the benefit.

As soon as he was given the key, Loki set about warding the rooms to kingdom come. What was the use of having a base of operations if just anyone could get in? Or out, for that matter. Loki found while it was possible to bypass something keeping things out, most people were hilariously unprepared for something keeping them _in_.

Then there were the obligatory stealth wards which made sure that, if Thor decided for a morning stroll around his precious city, he wouldn't come knocking at Loki's door. And the wards of warning in case the aforementioned stealth wards failed. And a few offensive ones just for fun, and because he had a reputation as a trickster to uphold.

The process took a bit longer than Loki would have liked, but the tediousness helped him focus on his other, larger problems.

First and foremost, who was included in his quest for vengeance?

Definitely Thor, Sif, and their Warriors Three, which automatically was whittled down to just Thor because of the ridiculous Comradery Clause between the five. If he hurt one, the other four would be equally wounded, and it wouldn't be half as satisfying to go after one of the warriors or Sif, even if his fall from power was partially their fault.

Odin was also on his list, which by extension included the rest of Asgard. The tricky thing would be to properly retaliate without catching his mother in the blast. She hadn't done anything to him.

And then the much trickier question, how was he planning on meting out any sort of punishment?

The Tesseract, and Thor, had disappeared shortly after Loki had managed to sweet-talk his way into a penthouse, which simultaneously freed him and trapped him. He didn't have to worry about attracting Thor's attention, but he felt he wasn't quite healed enough to use his usual routes to the other eight realms. They weren't safe enough to go wandering into without being in top condition.

Besides, if word got back to Asgard that Loki was alive, they might send someone to collect him. Or, maybe even worse, they wouldn't. So no gallivanting around where someone might recognize and/or reveal him for what he really was, which confined him to Midgard anyway.

What on Midgard could possibly be damaging enough to bring the All-Father to his knees? Nothing, that's what. The planet was irritatingly useless.

Loki finished his last ward with an unnecessary flourish and sank into his new, very comfortable couch, which was angled to face yet another mysterious black box. Presumably, there was a way to turn it on, but the thing was so ridiculously simple Loki couldn't quite figure it out. Thinking at it didn't work, neither did asking or imperious hand waving, and Loki was just about to give up and walk over to it when he spotted what he suspected to be a button.

So that's how Midgardians wanted to play. Loki made a mental note to severely underestimate the complexity of Midgardian machinery thereafter.

One pushed button later, Loki stared as the screen flickered alive and the people on it began to discuss the snow in the city.

So it was a viewing screen. How useful. Except for the utter uselessness of knowing the "traffic report". Quake in fear, All-Father, Main Street has been shut down.

Just before Loki turned the contraption off in disgust, the man gesturing at badly rendered storm clouds disappeared, only to be replaced by an angry, mustachioed man shouting, "The mutant problem! News at ten!"

Loki refused to be pulled in by desperate marketing strategies and turned it off anyways, but problem? Janie hadn't indicated the existence of a problem…

Although, all information taken by ear from that particular source was somewhat untrustworthy, what with his untruthful tendencies. But now that he thought of it, the sudden silence at the restaurant hadn't been because of the near collision.

Fear of the unknown was universal, after all, and the crawling paranoia of any person off the street being dangerous created a rather nice kindling. Really, it was just waiting for someone to light a spark. Or maybe _redirect_ it for maximum carnage.

A truly wondrous plan was starting to brew in the back of Loki's head, and he didn't restrain the malicious smile from surfacing. Odin had always possessed an odd attachment to Midgard, after all, and wouldn't it be ironic if it brought about his demise?

All he needed was a little more information and he could start. He put it on his mental itinerary, after stealing into "shield" to have a chat with the jotun, considering the time sensitive nature of the jotun's continued existence.

Trawling for information could wait, and if he got particularly desperate he could always hunt down his ex-host and shake some answers out of him. It wasn't as if losing Janie was a danger at this point. The jotun, on the other hand, was fading away at an alarming rate.

Luckily, the real, non-packaged food seemed to have done some good, and Loki was feeling closer to his old self. From what he recalled about Midgardian security, he was more than prepared to pay a little visit to the miserable creature without alerting anyone of his existence prematurely. It would be a shame to show his hand before the game could truly begin.

He surveyed his new dwelling one last time, and, finding his security to his satisfaction, focused on the jotun and disappeared.

((()))

Loki reappeared, invisibly of course, just inside of a circular and amusingly unwarded room. How the imprisoned giant hadn't managed to bash his way free from the glass walls escaped him. Or at least it did until the sweltering heat registered.

Clever little Midgardians. At least they had taken _some_ precautions with their prisoner.

He scrutinized the jotun for a moment. It didn't look particularly familiar, although all of them looked the same. After the death of Laufey, surely one of his sons would have taken over? He'd just have to confirm the jotun's leadership status.

But there were those pesky, ever-present cameras. Loki watched the jotun's red fever-glazed eyes skitter wildly around the room, and decided, with a rather unpleasant smile, that he'd do the humans a favor. They could listen in, maybe even learn a few things about the jotun's invasion. Or they'd brush off the jotun as simply delirious, it really wasn't his problem.

The trick was to only be visible to his intended victim. He'd learned how to do it early in life, mostly in an attempt to make Sif think she had lost her mind, but the heat was starting to interfere with his concentration. He'd have to keep an eye on that.

Mentally shrugging off his concern, he uncloaked himself and politely waited for the monster on the floor to acknowledge him. For a moment he was tempted to greet it by striking it, but he still felt a little leery about touching jötnar. If he had a weapon this wouldn't be a problem.

He added _get a staff_ to his rapidly growing to-do list just as the jotun noticed him and let out a gratifyingly long string of snarls and curses. The poor thing was so reduced by the heat it could barely haul itself into an upright position, but apparently its pride required him to meet Loki as equally as possible.

Loki didn't give it time to claw its way up the wall. "Did you really think you could just _take_ the Tesseract?" He received an incoherent snarl as the thing's legs gave out, but continued, "I'd thought I had seen poor planning before, but I must say you have impressed me."

"We," the creature took a moment to scrape together whatever lucidity the temperature had left it, "we were _promised_ …We would be _strong_ , Asgard crushed beneath our might, Midgard at our mercy."

The burning hatred in the jotun's eyes didn't even dent Loki's cool condescension. "Such bold promises. This benefactor of yours must be truly impressive, or he was simply lying." A jagged grin broke across his face. "I'd think the latter, honestly. You creatures are pathetically easy to entice."

"My Lord Th-No!" The creature cut itself off, clawing at its ears and writhing on the floor. Loki stared impassively at the spectacle, emphatically unaffected.

He did, however, almost jump backwards when the monster's eyes suddenly snapped up and onto his, a violent shade of blue overtaking the red. A ghastly, snaggle-toothed grin spread across its face. "Hello, little brother, I'd wondered where you'd scampered off to."

"I am not your brother, monster." The thing had officially lost its mind. Completely mad. Was it getting hard to think or was it just him?

"A god of Lies who also lies to himself." It laughed at him. _Laughed_. "You killed _our_ father and tried to kill _our_ world."

"He was _not_ my father." The conversation was sliding out of Loki's control, a feeling he wasn't fond of. "And I did the nine realms a _favor_ , ridding them of a sickness like your kind."

The monster's grin never wavered. "Then why did your beloved brother throw you off the Bifröst?"

Loki ground his teeth together. Even if the creature was wrong about who did the throwing, he still had a point…and about something he shouldn't have known in the first place. Splitting his focus between the conversation and keeping unseen by Midgardians in the heat was making it difficult to pin down the significance.

It took Loki's silence as an agreement, apparently, because it kept talking, and it had become downright loquacious. "If you had joined us instead of running away like a child, you could have conquered Thor and Asgard with ease. Tell me, Laufeyson, is freedom worth perpetual failure?"

With that derisive comment everything suddenly clicked together, and Loki found the foothold he had been scrambling for. "At least I'm not a puppet dancing on a string. Was it even your idea to attack Midgard in the first place? Or did your 'Lord' decide for you? I doubt you've had an original thought in your head since you started working with this mysterious 'Lord'."

For a moment loathing blood-red eyes stared back at him, but the blue overtook them once more. "I am burdened with _glorious_ purpose, Loki of Asgard, a purpose you will soon share."

The monster drew its fist back, grin sharpening to split its face for reasons Loki could not comprehend, and before he could respond with a properly scathing comment it viciously swung it down.

An earsplitting alarm rang out, breaking Loki's concentration for a split second, and suddenly he found himself pressed to the ceiling of the cage while the ocean hurtled towards them. The creature cackled, entirely too happy about its approaching death, or maybe Loki's, and that horrible noise paired with the remaining heat and crushing pressure left him disoriented enough to linger until right before the prison crashed into the ocean.

At the last moment, Loki wrenched himself away and back to his penthouse, where he crashed violently into his new bed and broke the dratted thing.

Oh, well. He could always just fix it.

Rather than do so, Loki just sat there and enjoyed how incredibly _cold_ it felt until he realized what he was doing, at which point he stood up so quickly he also broke the bedside table. For good measure, he decided to ferociously toss the lamp across the room. A bit of wanton destruction was good for the constitution.

Frustration had absolutely nothing to do with it, Loki was sure. His little field trip was a huge success, for one thing, and he had the beginnings of a revenge plot, so if anything he was smashing things out of a sense of…contentment. He stopped himself at setting the rug on fire, because he was fairly sure actual property damage would get him kicked out of the building.

While reluctantly mending his victims, Loki thought. He thought about the leader of the jötnar, who obviously wasn't in control of anything, and about the puppet master who Loki had apparently met before _and_ escaped from. His allegedly tampered with memory had been brought up, in its false form, so maybe the Lord had been the one to do the tampering, which was simply unacceptable, because that meant someone had been attempting to manipulate him.

People didn't manipulate Loki, Loki manipulated people.

Only, he didn't remember any sort of presence after Thor and before Janie, so he was woefully unaware of the exact power chasing after him. Being burdened with any sort of purpose not his own, even a glorious one, was not on Loki' list of life goals, so he resolved to look into the matter. Tomorrow, though, because that last bit of teleportation had bled him dry once again.

This limited magic business was getting tiresome.

((()))

The next week was spent painstakingly starting up a web of contacts, collecting his strength until he felt normal again, and blatantly ignoring the giant magical equivalent of a flashing neon sign that covered about half the city. He was too busy to drop in on it-possibly _him-_ anyway, because New York was apparently _the_ place to be if one wanted to start creating a morally questionable underground empire.

There were gangs, which he didn't care for but lead him to a breathtakingly obese man who called himself Kingpin. Loki hadn't actually met him yet, he was putting it off until he had a more solid power base, but he could locate the crime boss fairly accurately.

An impressive amount of bizarrely costumed mortals also made it their life's goal to break the city as much as possible. Again, he had only contacted the lackeys, but they had filled him in on A.I.M., Hydra, and the so-called Avengers with a little persuasion. Apparently the group of heroes had banded together to fight off the jötnar invasion and hadn't quite gotten around to _dis_ banding.

A.I.M., he decided, was to be avoided at all costs until he was able to back himself up with either firepower or allies. Any organization that focused so fully on technology and superweapons was not to be trifled with if someone had 'unexplainable' magic at their beck and call. Hydra, however, he seriously considered and resolved to contact later, as they probably already were aware of his existence.

A world-wide spy network was nothing to scoff at, he knew, and the sooner he got into their good graces the sooner he could start using it for himself.

The Morlocks had been a pleasant surprise, to say the least. He had started out expecting to create his own mutant organization, but Callisto, their eye-patch wearing leader, was delightfully bitter about her status as 'sub-human'. He'd even found a use for his jotun form, convincing her of his status as outcast as well and earning her respect. Loki had dropped some hints about changing the status quo and left with both acknowledgement and directions to keep in touch.

He could have done without the brawl, even if it had been fairly easy to win, but overall considered it a success.

The only problem he had, when the week had passed, was a lack of information. Current events were important, and the evening news was not unbiased enough to meet his needs. Loki had tried his hand at the internet, _once_ , and while google helped his quest for knowledge there was too much for him to sift through.

He was seriously considering an _Internet for Dummies_ book in a store window when it suddenly hit him.

S.H.I.E.L.D.

A shady governmental organization, allegedly on the side of good, would definitely have a plethora of information on the equally shady underworld and its goings on, if only to control it better. The only problem was their irritatingly _mobile_ operations center. And the fact that none of his newfound contacts knew anything about said organization except that one Nick Fury ran it.

He had checked. A little invasively, admittedly, but they hadn't been bright enough to notice. Most likely, he'd have to climb the power structure to learn anything of merit. Or infiltrate S.H.I.E.L.D., but that sounded like a recipe for disaster.

What he needed was some sort of auxiliary group that answered to S.H.I.E.L.D, but wasn't explicitly under its control. An unlikely occurrence if there ever was one.

Loki wasn't one to pine after the unlikely, so he shelved that particular idea and walked down the street, considering alternatives.

He could always flush the organization out by creating a disaster of epic proportions, but then they would be aware of him and more likely to meddle with his information gathering. The last thing he wanted was for them to be prepared, people were always so much easier to direct when they were off-balance.

There was always the slight chance that he could arrange for one of the many supervillains in New York to do it for him, but he wasn't sure about the exact caliber of catastrophe he would need to instigate in order to attract S.H.I.E.L.D instead of a lone superhero. If he did decide to outsource, there was also the problem of making sure his underling wouldn't immediately turn on him if caught.

 _Or_ , instead of making his own calamity, he could wait until one inevitably happened without his interference. They seemed to occur on a bi-weekly basis anyway, one was sure to draw out his target eventually.

Yes, the last one sounded like it would turn out the best. Satisfied with his decision, Loki decided to make a stop at the most tolerable cafe on the street. They made rather excellent food considering they were _Midgardian_.

Loki slipped into line behind a slim, red-headed woman who was bantering with either the air, or with the person on the other end of her hands-free device. He could never tell, and he didn't particularly care, he only wished Midgardians realized how incredibly loud they could be. Even without superior hearing, he was fairly certain he could have heard both sides of the conversation.

"Hey, if Fury keeps trying to blackmail you into giving up my secrets, tell him I'm going to steal his eyepatch and sell it on eBay."

The woman smiled. "You wouldn't. Steve would be so disappointed in you."

"Grown men should _not_ be able to pout like that, it's unnatural. Wait, don't tell him I said this, but do you think I could weaponize it and guilt villains into submission?"

"It would save you from paying for all the property damage, at least." She reached the front of the line and motioned for the cashier to wait for a moment. "I'll have to call you back unless you want them to get your order wrong again."

"Fine. Make sure they give me _three_ caramel shots, not two. I can taste the difference."

"I'm sure. Remember, tomorrow it's _your_ turn for the coffee run." And with that, she stepped smartly in front of the counter and rattled off an absurdly complicated coffee order. Loki didn't catch it, too busy trying to decide if this Fury was _the_ Nick Fury he had just been thinking about.

It was honestly probable, mostly because of the alleged blackmailing. How was this woman involved with S.H.I.E.L.D.? She didn't seem to report to Fury, but was important enough to face extortion. Maybe she was a connection between the organization and the more wildcard heroes, which would explain her possession of 'secrets'.

Not that it mattered, of course. The vague chance of gaining a minor hero's trust didn't appeal as much as finding a direct link to S.H.I.E.L.D., and he doubted his mystery woman could provide him with that any more than blatant spying.

Still…Loki wasn't known for his schemes for nothing. He liked to cover all the angles.

After ordering what sounded like five different and highly diverse cups of coffee, the redhead stepped back and _just so happened_ to clip Loki's shoulder. Being a gentleman, he offered her a steadying hand. If pressed, he would insist the hastily rendered tracking spell pressed into her skin was entirely unrelated, and it was only so simple because he didn't have enough time to draw up a proper surveillance charm.

She smiled apologetically, an action he returned before stepping forwards to claim a pastry. The week had gone very well, considering he had started it with nearly plummeting to his death.

((()))

AN: I hope you all enjoyed the weekly updates while they lasted, because things start getting sticky here. I'll try to keep up, but since I haven't got everything actually written out yet I make no promises. Life would be so much easier if I could just beam everything straight from my brain, but alas. Side note: I'm changing the rating to T because reasons, and because I don't know what I was thinking making it K+ in the first place. 'Tis a shock, I know, but please refrain from panicking.


	15. Scurrility

Disclaimer: I own nothing that shows up in this chapter, and I don't really want the responsibility. Move along.

((()))

Loki was seriously reconsidering the wisdom of his reconnaissance plan. It involved entirely too much skulking around battlegrounds for his taste.

He casually ducked under a stray fireball as he pondered.

Now, Asgardian brawls could get out of hand, and quite a few had because of Loki, but the sheer level of destruction these Midgardians did to their cities while trying to kill each other was simply breathtaking. It certainly did nothing to raise his opinion of their intelligence.

Part of the destruction, he guessed, was caused by the painfully new Avengers team trying to cooperate with each other. Specifically, the man in red and blue, most likely one Captain America, was obviously used to a much more responsive team, and the flying metal man he suspected to be the infamous Tony Stark was just as used to individual work. At least the archer and the assassin were effective.

Put simply, the Avengers were a walking disaster in their own right, regardless of the villain of the week.

Not to say the various malignants weren't adding to the damage. In his quest to find a solid connection to Nick Fury, Loki had personally witnessed the utter decimation of a street by way of geomancy, the flooding and subsequent freezing of half the waterways in the city, and an aborted attempt at unleashing a horrific disease upon the denizens of Manhattan via crazed lizard man.

All but the last had been responded to by the woefully underprepared Avengers, but he had to admit they were at least improving. Their response time was fantastic, if nothing else. He suspected they were operating under S.H.I.E.L.D. command because of their apparent omnipresence in the city, but hadn't yet found definitive proof. Without that proof, he didn't want to commit to anything more time consuming than invisibly standing off to the sidelines.

He stepped out of the way of yet another burst of flame from the overzealous villain below, who was shouting something inconsequential about harnessing the power of the sun to defeat the Avengers. What was less inconsequential, however, was the good Captain's shout. "Iron Man, help Hawkeye stop the fires!"

"He's fine, Cap, there's barely any charring. And the buildings are fine too." The metal suit lazily spun away from a jet of fire. "I'm the only one of us who can get close to this guy without being charbroiled anyway, you help him."

"That _wasn't_ a request." The Captain watched Iron Man grudgingly zip away from the fight and muttered, "How Fury expects us to get anything done is a mystery."

The fight came to a rather abrupt end when both Iron Man and Captain America funneled their frustration towards the cackling figure. A shield thrown with extreme prejudice into the solar plexus could in itself be considered overkill, but when followed closely by two beams of destructive energy to the back the poor Midgardian really didn't have a chance.

Loki took his leave as the Avengers attempted to bat out the residual flames. He had what he had come for, after all, and he needed a moment to plot properly.

It seemed he had found his auxiliary group, made by Nick Fury himself. That made everything so much _easier_. The Avengers weren't nearly organized enough to properly pin him down, even if they did become aware of him, and they knew how S.H.I.E.L.D. operated.

At least, they knew more than _he_ did. Not that it took much effort at the moment.

His luck seemed to be picking up. As proved by the last couple of weeks, the Avengers were pathetically easy to spy on. As long as one didn't attempt to enter Stark's garish tower, the inner workings of the building were as simple to watch as one of those ridiculous Midgardian televisions. And that woman from the coffee shop, Pepper Potts, occasionally became airborne and hovered over the city, so he had a partially effective way to pin down the Helicarrier with her.

Now, if Thor were still around, Loki would have had a bit more of a challenge on his hands. Despite having the magical capacity of a dandelion, his b- _he_ could pick Loki's signature out of a crowd even while drunken and concussed unless he took measures to conceal himself. An irksome ability, to say the least.

At least he needed to be actively searching for Loki, and since everyone in Asgard thought him dead...well, it wouldn't be a problem. And that wasn't disappointing in the _slightest_ , he'd be happy if he never had to talk to the oaf again.

A good few blocks away from the wreckage, he deemed it safe to drop his invisibility enchantment, switching forms to one of his more unassuming appearances he had lifted from a passing Midgardian earlier. It wouldn't do to get caught on camera quite yet, after all, and he felt like taking the long way back to his home. He found it easier to think while he was moving, and if he went back now he'd just end up wearing a hole into his carpet.

Pushing his way through the endless flood of humanity, Loki mused on the next part of his plan. He needed a way to insert himself into the group without causing too much suspicion, but to do that he required knowledge of them beyond what staring into windows could tell him. That could cause something of a problem, since he didn't want to risk detection with any of his more useful tricks.

Speaking of problems, the Morlocks had turned out be a dead end. There _had_ to be some sort of underground Mutant movement fighting for 'liberation', that was just how Midgardians approached conflict, but the group he found was a neutral force at very best. He needed something more...malignant, or he'd have to go back to making an uprising himself.

The rumble of thunder jarred him out of his thoughts, and he looked around sharply for a moment before forcing himself to relax. Thor wouldn't have returned yet, it had barely been a Midgardian week and Odin wouldn't let his precious crown prince go frolicking in other worlds without an excellent reason. It usually took the great idiot at least twice this long to think up an excuse in Loki's experience.

Still, better safe than sorry.

Unwilling to abandon his little walk entirely but feeling much less relaxed, he cut through a construction site. It cut his journey quite neatly in half and got him away from a large portion of the mindless idiots roaming the streets, so in reality he wasn't running from an imaginary Thor, he was _improving_ his surroundings.

Halfway through his shortcut he distractedly waved an incredibly large and angry Midgardian with a ridiculous little yellow hat out of his way with a flicker of _I'm not here_ , then safely made it to the other side.

As soon as his foot touched pavement lightning split the air. It was entirely too close for comfort, and marked the moment everything began to go wrong.

Thor suddenly landed across the street, touching down in tandem with the crash of thunder. "Brother, where are you?"

...Concealing measures it was. Loki forced himself to unfreeze and calmly walk down the street, resolutely _not_ looking at Thor and muttering hasty charms under his breath. He grimaced slightly at the sensation of his essence being stretched into something unrecognizable, but didn't stop.

"I know you are here Loki!"

Still walking, Loki silently cursed himself for leaving the main road. There were only four or five Midgardians trailing around, not nearly enough to blend into and summarily disappear from. Anything like that would be too obvious.

Mjölner held tightly in his grasp, Thor desperately searched for signs of him. " _Please_ , brother, I thought you dead. Speak with me."

Well _obviously_ he thought he was dead, he was the one that had thrown-No, that was false, Thor was just an idiot. As if a tumble into the cosmos could kill Loki. Despite himself he lingered, leaning against a lamppost just out of Thor's sight, to hear what he had to say.

His br-The _Asgardian_ seemed a bit bereft when Loki didn't immediately appear out of thin air, but quickly regained himself. "We all mourned for you."

That was doubtful. Sif and her warriors three had most likely lead the rest of Asgard in a toast to his demise. And then hosted a feast.

"Father has yet to recover, but stays strong for Asgard."

The flash of quicksilver hate Loki felt at that man, that _liar_ , nearly had him revealing himself. Instead, he turned to leave.

"Mother was- _is_ -distraught. She misses you terribly."

That froze him in his tracks. He had never wanted to hurt _her_ , she had been the only bright spot in his miserable existence since before he could remember. Loki teetered indecisively, torn between making sure Thor thought he had been a figment of his imagination or revealing himself and returning home.

Home. That was the crux of the issue, wasn't it? Thor, in a shocking demonstration of intelligence, began storming up to the few unlucky Midgardians scattered around, demanding he show himself, but Loki was too deep in thought to care.

Asgard had never truly been home. He had been tricked into thinking it for a time, via nievity and Odin's false promises, but he had never been anything but a bargaining chip. They might as well have locked him up next to the Casket of Ancient Winters for all he meant. And Thor, the _clueless brute_ , wanted him to return? For what? Likely nothing more than to settle Thor's overactive conscience.

No, Loki refused to revert back to being in Thor's shadow. That would mean Odin would _win_ , would have a Loki-shaped playing piece once more, and that was just unacceptable. But what of his mother?

Thor rounded the corner, looking downtrodden and somewhat sheepish as the accosted Midgardians shook themselves out of their shocked stupor and began shouting. He caught sight of Loki, who strove to look as normal and Midgardian-like as possible, gave him a suspicious look for a moment, then sighed and turned away. "You are gone already, and I cannot blame you. Father told me of your origins. It has been over a year, and I still have not forgiven myself for not noticing your pain before it was too late. Know that you will always be my brother, regardless of what you have done."

And with that shocking, somewhat world-changing statement, he zipped away like the world's most ridiculous bird, red cape flapping behind him.

Loki took a very controlled breath in, then out, then turned on his heel and strode toward a nearby shop, garish neon sign proclaiming _THIMBLEWINTER BAR_. It looked to be an excellent place to get drunk.

How _dare_ Thor accept him, even if they were merely empty words. _How dare_ he remind him of Mother, and the pain he forgot he caused her. How _dare_ he even _hint_ that Odin lost more than a chess piece when Loki fell. Monsters were hated, unpardonable beasts, and being a monster was so much less complicated than _this_.

((()))

AN: Yeah, it's a little short, but that's the spot it wanted to end in. Can anyone say _DRAMA_? Goodness gracious. However, I think that'll be the last of the blatant stuff for a good while. We are slowly but surely going somewhere. If someone can correctly guess where that somewhere _is_ , I'll find a way to send them their heart's deepest desire, because even I'm a little behind the curve sometimes. Ta!


	16. Hoodwink

Disclaimer: I own nothing but Janie, who I'm vaguely ashamed of thinking up in the first place. Forward!

((()))

Sunlight stabbed unforgivingly into the room, and when he scraped enough lucidity together, Loki silently resolved to snuff the blasted thing out of existence. He seriously needed to invest in some curtains for his gorgeous panoramic view if binge drinking was going to become a normal occurrence.

Considering his recent encounter with Thor, it was _. Those_ kinds of revelations required lots of alcohol, and now that his brother knew he existed in his general vicinity, Loki foresaw many more unwanted proxy heart-to-hearts in his future.

Thor had looked so _hurt_ , going on about mourning and whatnot. And then his declaration right before he left…Alcohol had really only been the only answer, that or razing the city, and considering the slim possibility of reconciliation wanton destruction was currently unacceptable.

To ward off a wave of moroseness, which would only end in more binge drinking and a worse hangover, Loki peeled himself off the couch and surveyed his lair. He wasn't quite sure how he made it back, honestly, because he had done his very best to drink an entire bar's worth of liquor, and sometime around midnight everything had gone pleasantly blurry. Most definitely blurry enough to render his teleportation moot, at the very least.

Someone cleared their throat peevishly behind him. They sounded oddly familiar.

He blamed the familiarity, and not the splitting headache, on his embarrassingly glacial turn to face the intruder. When he finally got around to turning around, he was blandly surprised by the sight of Janie. "Oh, it's you."

The little Midgardian scowled. "I've been trying to leave your stupid house for the last _five hours,_ so you can stuff it. I didn't want to see you again either."

"How did you even get in here? You should be fried to a crisp." The antagonization put the wind back in Loki's sails, and he gathered up the direction to begin a slow circle towards Janie. The Midgardian looked much more frazzled than usual, but that really wasn't his problem. The room starting its own slow circle, on the other hand _, was_ his problem.

"I just _walked in_ , like a normal person. You didn't even lock the door, you know, and that's a bad habit for someone living in New York." Janie began pacing a frantic figure-eight, irritation bleeding into a mild, formless panic. "And then I tried to _leave_ , and that didn't work, and now you're up let me out now."

Janie's explanation was met with what an uncharitable person might have called a stunned silence, but Loki preferred to think of it as _pondering_. As in, pondering why Janie was _still talking_.

"Don't look at me like that! I've got things to do you know, and I don't even like you. If my boss hadn't threatened to fire me, I'd have left you out in the street, no two ways about it. And then there was the _singing_. You couldn't carry a tune in a bucket, let alone the twelve bottles you sloshed down. Where did you even put it all? How are you going to pay for all that? Do you even have a job?"

The world was beginning to pulse in rhythm with Janie's twittering, which Loki wanted to stop immediately to preserve what little sanity he had left. He snagged the increasingly shrill Midgardian as he looped by and dragged him out the door to get some beautiful _silence_. At least, he tried to.

" _Hey,_ ow. OW. Leggo!"

Something jerked the two of them to a halt before Janie was even halfway through the door. A few moments more of stubborn tugging ensued until Loki's higher brain functions kicked in, and he dropped the marginally airborne Midgardian like a stone. "How are you doing that?"

Janie staggered to his feet, brushing off some not-so-invisible dust. "You're the magical one here _, you_ figure it out. I've got class in two hours, so get moving."

Viciously shoving Janie backwards and into the doorway again might have not been the most _mature_ response, but it definitely made Loki feel better. The slow motion bounce-back effect was also entirely too amusing for him to be totally sober.

Pity. He had thought he was just being level-headed for once. Loki almost pulled a face when he realized he was entirely too drunk to figure out how to evict Janie, but instead he tried for a little trick he'd learned from some rather colorful characters to rid himself of 'impurities' in his blood.

Handy when drinking poisonous mead, equally so when…what did the Midgardians call it? 'Detoxing'. It took him a painfully long moment to wrangle his magic into complying, but he was soon left with a pounding headache and a mercilessly clear view of the world.

He turned a cold glare onto his impromptu houseguest. Said houseguest returned the sympathies with gusto and began a slightly feverish circuit around Loki's ottoman. He didn't seem to be able to keep still, which was seriously impacting Loki's ability to concentrate.

That was what he blamed for his idiocy when he finally identified the problem. The moron had managed to integrate himself in with Loki's wards enough to get in without becoming a fireball upon entry, but apparently not enough to cancel out his secondary keep-people-in ward. All Loki would have to do to get Janie back out of his life was take the interfering ward down and boot him out the door.

Instead of immediately acting, Loki took a step back to survey the situation. The useless and ever-present bubble of magical energy around the Midgardian actually had a use, apparently, in that it was non-descript enough to merge with his own magic.

Now that he was looking, Loki's standing wards were using up absolutely ridiculous amounts of energy that he certainly wasn't giving them to stretch and cover all the little holes he had left. Loki's penthouse was now, for all intents and purposes, impenetrable until Janie dropped dead of magical exhaustion, which he estimated would be soon.

Problem solved.

When Janie stubbornly remained walking around and not deceased or unconscious, Loki was forced to admit that perhaps his assumption of the Midgardian's uselessness was a bit hasty. If nothing else, he'd make a wonderful battery.

And, unless he had been blatantly lying, he distinctly remembered Janie's uncanny knowledge of mutants. A vague plan coiled in the back of Loki's mind. "What will you do for me if I help you?"

"I'll consider us even," Janie proclaimed with a magnanimous gesture, not pausing in his loop.

"Ha! If anything _you_ owe _me_ for sparing your pathetic life." The _nerve_ of some people, honestly.

"Look, I've saved your life twice, so I think you're getting the better deal here."

Saved was a gross overstatement, drunkenly wandering the streets wouldn't have been the worst thing he'd ever done. "In return, you still live. You're welcome. Moving on-"

"Nu-uh," Janie whirled around and jabbed a finger at Loki, "even if those cancel out, which they don't, you still owe me one for dinner."

"That was _not_ a favor."

"Why not?"

Loki's hands jerked in an aborted strangling motion. "You used me as a conversational _shield._ "

"You got _free food_. That's worth at least two awkward conversations."

"That's not-" Loki took a deep, calming breath. "I refuse to argue with you. Would you like to leave or not?"

Instead of answering the question, Janie resumed his feverish circling. Loki, not one to be put off by the silent treatment, simply stared as the Midgardian, watching his calm façade flake off like dry paint. Janie really had no choice but to eventually crack. "Fine! If I did _, hypothetically_ , do something for you, which I won't because at the most we're _even_ , what would it be?"

"Oh, don't mind me. We can stand here for a while longer." Loki might have been taking a touch too much joy out of Janie's unease. He let the Midgardian squirm until he looked ready to try and brain Loki with a nearby vase out of desperation, then casually continued, "I simply need some information."

Janie stood as tall as he was able, arms crossed, looking vastly unimpressed. "You caught me at a bad time, all my blackmail books are back under my bed."

"I don't need any help with _blackmail_ , it's more of a…reconnaissance matter." Loki received a blank stare, but he carried on regardless. "You've heard of the Morlocks, I presume. I need to be informed of any other underground mutant organizations and their goals."

"Why?"

" _You_ are fulfilling a debt to _me_ , you don't get to ask questions." Ridiculous, honestly.

"I thought we decided I was doing you a favor."

Loki was almost surprised as Janie when he sent a dagger whizzing towards the Midgardian's head, but luckily, or _un_ luckily, Janie managed to move fast enough to only get a slice across his cheek instead of a knife between the eyes. The god of Lies decided to pretend the entire thing was on purpose, and not caused by a violent fit of pique. "The next one will be in your skull."

" _Gah_ , that's gonna stain! This is a new shirt." After a few seconds of useless daubing, Janie shrugged and gave it up as a lost cause. The cut bled sluggishly. "Now you owe me for dry-cleaning too."

The eye roll the Midgardian received would have killed most other people under the crushing weight of its disgust, but since Janie wasn't most people Loki just decided to fight fire with fire and play with Janie's faux-logic. "I'm certain that thing is so low quality that dry-cleaning is out of the question. I've also done you a favor by destroying that hideous thing, so now you're in my debt. Tell me all you know."

Janie, miraculously acquiescing in the face of his own illogic, fingered his cheek, humming thoughtfully. "I dunno, I don't really get involved with those kinds of people."

"Why don't I believe you, I wonder?"

The Midgardian just shrugged. "You're the one asking a pathological liar for information, here, I'm not responsible for that."

Loki scowled and loomed to the best of his ability, which, considering the pathetically short nature of his guest, was rather impressive. "But you _can_ tell the truth, I've seen it. You didn't lie about anything substantial when we were discussing, and you eventually told me what you _did_ lie about, so your charming friend Ralph is woefully misinformed about your condition."

"Wait, you talked to _Ralph_? When? What did he say?"

"Something about you not being able to recognize reality." Loki waved a hand dismissively. "Obviously he was incorrect, so I'd appreciate it if you kept the yarn-spinning to a minimum."

"There's a difference between not lying and lying about little things, you know, but _fine_. I'll try." They stared at each other, the silence stretching painfully until Janie violently gestured, flicking blood at Loki's _very nice_ couch, and snapped, "Well, ask your question!"

"I already did, you ingrate. Tell me _all you know_ about the mutant underground." Loki was beginning to regret this decision already.

Janie huffed and resumed his pacing. "It works better if I have something specific to answer, but fine, it's _your_ funeral. There're the Morlocks, they're pretty friendly."

Loki snorted in disbelief. "I've met them, and _friendly_ is not the word I would use to describe them."

"You probably freaked 'em out with your high and mighty act," Janie dismissed, "they've got serious issues with inferiority, if you hadn't noticed. Try treating them like normal people and they'll warm right up. Calypso is nice when she's not on a tear."

"Their leader's name is _Callisto_." Loki glared, but Janie's unrepentant shrug convinced him that pursuing the issue would only end in more thrown daggers. "Continue."

"Have you met the Brotherhood yet?" Loki's blank look was apparently enough of an answer, because Janie kept going. "I don't really know _why_ you want to get in touch with 'the underground', but they're the people to go to if you want to help the cause for mutant liberation."

"Why, exactly?" Not that liberation was one of his goals, but luckily no one needed to know that.

"They've got more firepower than the Morlocks, for one thing." In his excitement, Janie started to pick up speed and gesticulate wildly. "Magneto, their leader, has this crazy thing where he manipulates magnetic fields well enough to stop bullets dead in the air, and his second can make herself look like anyone else. She's really pretty, actually, when she's herself, she's got this scaly blue thing going on."

"Mmhmm." He hadn't been aware Midgardians were so chromatically diverse. "Why would they help me more than Morlocks?"

"Well, they're a definite terrorist organization, while the Morlocks are more of a neutral force, especially since the X-Men got to them." Janie stopped dead and turned to face Loki. "I'm assuming you're not trying to be nice here, so if you are you've gotta tell me because I'm steering you wrong."

Loki shook his head minutely. "I'm certainly not trying to _improve_ this pathetic planet. Where can I find this 'Brotherhood'?"

Janie cheerfully shrugged. "Beats me. I'm not really what they're looking for when they go recruiting. _But_ ," the Midgardian looked entirely too pleased with himself, "I know some people who could ask around for you, if you want."

"If you do that, I will consider us even." Janie puffed up in outrage, but Loki continued regardless. "Unless you don't want me to let you leave?"

The reminder of his accidental imprisonment created a serious dent in the Midgardian's energy level, but he still jabbed an accusing finger at Loki. "I thought this Q and A was for that."

"It would have been, but you were being difficult." Loki grinned maliciously. "Currently you're paying me back for ruining your eyesore of a shirt."

"My shirt isn't _that_ bad, you know. It could be…plaid or something." Janie frowned down at his shirt, then shot Loki a questioning glance. "Anything else? I've actually got places to be."

Loki didn't even have to think. "You mentioned X-Men. Who are they?"

"They're a superhero organization, and therefore not part of the underground or this conversation. Can I go now?" Perhaps reminding Janie of his predicament hadn't been the wisest thing, the Midgardian couldn't seem to concentrate on anything else.

"You can answer my question and leave from the door," Loki pointed demonstratively, then jabbed a finger viciously at his window wall, "or you could not and I'll throw you through there."

The threat caused Janie to pause a moment, but he quickly resumed his movement. "I don't know, that window's pretty shatter proof."

Tamping down the urge to ask _why_ Janie knew that, a line of questioning which would probably end in the Midgardian's death, Loki merely took a menacing step forward. "Would you like to test that?"

"Oh, I've tested it, but _fine_. Fine, you win." Janie made a highly sarcastic 'hooray-for-you' motion with his hands. "X-Men are mutants too, but they go around trying to get along with normal people and, you know, _stopping_ an all-out race war. Basically the opposite of the Brotherhood, don't go near them if you wanna stay off the grid 'cause they'll rat you out to S.H.I.E.L.D. in a second."

"I don't know why you have to make these things so difficult, if you had just told me what I wanted to know you could've been gone ten minutes ago." Loki kindly decided to ignore the rather rude gesture he got in response, and moved onto the next issue at hand. "I'll send you on your way once I have your word that you'll be back here by the end of the week with information on the Brotherhood."

"Through the door?"

" _Yes_ , through the door."

Janie gave the penthouse a onceover, stalling for time as he thought the offer over. "How did you afford such a nice place anyway?"

"That is not your concern. What _is_ your concern is the whereabouts of mutant terrorist organizations." Loki snapped his fingers in front of Janie's nose. "Focus. It's a yes or a no."

"Yeah, sure, I promise to be back by next week, but it might take longer to figure out how to reach the Brotherhood, on account of me not being a mutant."

Loki felt the vow snap into life between them, and he barely restrained a grin. Apparently, Janie was just as bound to his word as your average magical creature. Good to know. "I suppose I should let you get on your way, then."

"You really should. I've been told I get destructive if I'm stuck in one place for too long." The Midgardian hovered next to the door and stared expectantly at Loki, giving him a dirty look when it took less than a second to bring down the ward, and scampering out without further ado.

"One week, Janie!" Loki called down the hall, mostly to be irritating. It had been a while since he had harassed someone just for fun. He found it refreshing.

Less refreshing, of course, was the renewal of the Thor Problem in his mind now that his distraction was gone. He closed the door and slunk back to the couch, sinking boneless into the cushions for a well-deserved nap. He roused himself momentarily when it occurred to him that Janie had _bled_ on his couch, which was both rude and unsanitary, but couldn't for the life of him see where. Loki pinched the bridge of his nose and decided it was a lost cause, then laid down again.

Maybe the world would make more sense when he wasn't hungover.

((()))

AN: Look! An update that's sort of on time! Unfortunately, we're back to the meander-plot of doom, because apparently high-speed action and thrills aren't my thing. I'm more of a snail's pace kudzu kind of person. This would be so much easier to gauge if someone who didn't know what was happening told me what they thought was going down, but alas, nothing has really happened yet despite _sixteen_ chapters so there's not much to hear. Goodness, I'm positively glacial. Thanks for reading!


	17. Fraudulence

Disclaimer: Anything recognizable here isn't mine. That's about the short and the long of it.]

((()))

The next while went rather more smoothly than Loki had been expecting. He managed to avoid Thor, which wasn't particularly difficult, and had begun to make actual progress on the Hydra front, which was significantly more so.

For a secret society that connections literally _everywhere_ , they were surprisingly reluctant to speak with him. One would think having a powerful magic-user in their pool of resources would be tempting, at least, but apparently not. They only responded when he claimed to have inside information on the Avengers. Specifically: Thor.

They seemed to think Thor was some kind of dangerous, unknown force, and Loki wasn't about to disabuse them of the notion. The more unconquerable the oaf seemed, the more Hydra would need him as a counterbalance.

In that vein, he might have lied slightly about Thor's tactical prowess, his overall intelligence, and the abilities of Asgardians in general. He didn't feel particularly worried about getting caught out, it was unlikely they'd ever be able to truly verify anything without having an actual Asgardian to experiment on. He now had limited access to a worldwide spy network, just waiting to be twisted to his means.

Of course, Hydra was under the assumption that _they_ were manipulating _him_ , using his grudge against his ex-brother as leverage. Laughable, really. As if he would let something so petty rule him.

The fact that he had nearly overplayed his hand several times was neither here nor there.

Back at his apartment after several days of travelling around the world to meet various Hydra agents, he paced and considered his next step. Obviously, he needed a way to breach the higher echelons of the organization, and-

 _Tap_!

Loki turned toward the front door, giving it a suspicious look. Who could that be? Nobody knew he was here...except for Janie. Had it been a week already? Time flies when dealing with anti-government agencies.

It swung open with a flick of Loki's fingers, but there was a distinct lack of irritating Midgardian on the other side. Instead, there was a sheet of paper nailed to the door. Loki strode up and ripped the page from its place, glancing over it briefly.

 _The Brotherhood has a base set up in the warehouse district somewhere, Magneto will be visiting next thursday. Tada! I came back._

Why that _little_ -

Fine. If that was how Janie wanted to play, it was on his own head.

He manifested himself at the bottom of the nearest stairwell just in time for the little Midgardian to smack straight into him and fall down the next flight with an undignified yelp. And the next, with a curse. And the next, with what sounded like an exasperated groan.

Unplanned, yet oh _so_ satisfying. He had actually been angling to stop the elevator and corner the Midgardian there, but this worked just as well. There weren't any cameras in the stairwell.

When his hapless victim finally came to a stop, Loki appeared next to him, leaning lazily against the concrete wall and looking down his nose at the battered creature. "So, where is this warehouse, exactly?"

"What was _that_ for, you _fjǫllóttr kaun_?"

"Manners, Janie, manners." And then Loki sent him down the next flight with a nudge of his boot.

Unfortunately, he managed to regain his footing before he could give a repeat performance. Janie staggered to his feet, severely favoring one side and giving Loki one of the ugliest looks he'd ever had the pleasure of receiving. If looks could kill, the demi-god would definitely be dead.

"Nah! We're even now, so buzz off! I've got my own stuff to do, and I just said I'd come back." The Midgardian violently gestured to the stairwell with a manic grin. "I'm back! So buh-bye."

Before Janie could even think to continue his trek, Loki appeared in his path, looming over the smaller man and looking incredibly unamused. "I want information. _This_ ," he shoved the note at the Midgardian, who mutinously refused to break their staring contest to look at it, "is not information. This is useless."

"Howzat _my_ problem? I told you it would take time, and you gave me a week. If it's anyone's fault it's _yours_." Nodding firmly to himself, Janie sharply turned and prepared to shove his way past Loki.

It didn't work, unsurprisingly, especially because Loki was prepared to stand there for hours if he had to, and Janie had the approximate strength of an emaciated sparrow. "Then I extend your deadline until you find something _I_ deem useful."

"Can't! Ship's sailed, my friend, you had your shot." Unperturbed by his own feebleness, the Midgardian drew back and started eyeing the handrail, then paused. "...If you want to owe _me_ a favor or two we can talk."

Loki snorted. "As if I would lower myself to such a level." Janie _would_ do this for him, at this point it was a matter of pride. He just needed to find the right leverage. Pain obviously wouldn't work, the Midgardian seemed to be seriously considering a five-story drop to escape their conversation. He had a feeling blackmail would be about as effective, and the tried-and-true route of targeting family would likely end in Janie giving him a thank-you bouquet. So how...Oh.

Of course.

Quicker than the Midgardian could hope to see -or avoid- Loki seized him and _healed_.

Either Janie was much less injured than he looked, or his oddness had expedited the process, because that had taken only a fraction of expected power, but either way the man was now good as new and definitively _not happy_ about it.

" _Why you_ -"

"It seems you _do_ owe me after all, imagine that." A distinctly nasty smile edged across Loki's face.

" _Non-consensual_! Non-consensual healing! Doesn't count!"

"I know just how you can recompense my generosity, worry not."

Janie futilely tried to put some distance between the two of them, retreating back up the stairs. "Not. Happening."

"Oh, don't lie. It's quite unbecoming. I imagine I just saved you quite a lot of grief-"

"That you _caused_!"

"And all I want is a definite location for this alleged meeting with Magneto before Thursday. You have five days."

The finality in Loki's tone cut off all discussion on the matter, and Janie deflated slightly. A moment of smug silence passed, then the Midgardian rallied himself, bristling like a cornered cat. "Fine! But that's worth _two_ favors, this week is midterms and I'm gonna have to talk to some people I _really_ don't like."

He quantified favors? Loki could see some potential there, definitely something he could swing in his own favor when the time came. Such as when the Midgardian came calling. "Acceptable. And we will meet _face-to-face_ to discuss your findings."

Janie wrinkled his nose in distaste, but grudgingly nodded. "Deal."

Loki vanished back to his apartment as soon as he felt the promise take. He had other things to work on, after all.

((()))

On Wednesday -mere seconds before midnight- Janie appeared in front of his door like a particularly passive-aggressive specter, imparted his message, and stumped out into the snow without a single extra word. Loki could get used to that.

It didn't give him much time to prepare, but he was nothing if not adaptable. How hard could it be to convince some Midgardian with delusions of grandeur that Loki could help his glorious cause?

As it turns out, very difficult. Loki had severely underestimated the power of those specific Midgardians.

That one woman, tall with blonde hair, nearly managed to penetrate through his mental shields before he had even revealed himself. She had gotten enough to sense his general location, at which point a red-haired woman attempted to evaporate him out of existence -which was ineffective but quite rude- and Magneto himself collapsed about half of the warehouse on top of him with literally at twitch of his fingers.

Yes. He may have _slightly_ underestimated mutants. In his defense they were Midgardian, despite their abilities, and the denizens of this realm tended to oversell themselves. Also, their leader had decided to call himself _Magneto_.

It didn't matter, he would be more prepared next time. Perhaps he could keep an ear out for skirmishes between the Brotherhood and the X-Men, lend this Magneto a helping hand and form a little bit of mutual trust. It was clear to him now that he couldn't just waltz up without a good reason, lest his intentions be taken as...less than pure.

On the bright side, he was fairly certain he could track that witch-woman if it struck his fancy. She actually had enough power to perform a little magic. Alright, a lot of magic. Truly terrifying amounts of reality-altering magic, if he was going to be truly honest. It really wasn't fair.

What _was_ fair was that, by his count, he owed Janie a favor. That meant he had ample opportunity to re-indenture the Midgardian when he eventually came calling, and Loki had a feeling that would be soon. He was entirely too twitchy to keep something like that in his back pocket for long.

((()))

Two weeks of clawing his way up Hydra's ranks, helping various mutant small-fry out of their own problems, and glaring at Thor through Stark's windows left a bad taste in Loki's mouth. However, he _did_ have unfettered access to most of Hydra's files.

Not that they _knew_ about that. Perks of invisibility, shapeshifting, and teleportation he supposed.

He was just on his daily walk-about in one of his more unassuming guises, keeping an eye out for an inevitable mutant-in-need or Thor, when something ran straight into his back. That something cursed breathlessly as it clattered to the ground, spilling...acorns?

Loki turned sharply around, and there were indeed _acorns_ scattered around a severely winded Midgardian. _The_ Midgardian, Janie, who clutched at his chest and wheezed, " _Why_ are you so _slow_?"

Without properly acknowledging Loki he turned and started to desperately gather everything up, glancing over his shoulder periodically and muttering. Right as he picked up the last one he finally scowled up at the demi-god, then promptly dropped them all again. " _You_."

"Me." Loki adjusted his glasses and pointedly smoothed his currently blond hair. "Going somewhere?"

"Why do you look like an accountant? I thought you couldn't change your eye color. What-" Janie bodily cringed when what could only be described as an _ethereal shriek of rage_ split through the air. "Nevermind! No time for you."

With that he dropped down and scraped all the nuts into his bag in record time, but not nearly fast enough to stop Loki from getting a word in edgewise. "Sounds like you've gotten yourself in a bit of trouble. I don't suppose you need a hand?"

"No. Not wasting my favor on this. This is none of your business. Go away." It sounded more like a mantra than an actual rebuttal, especially considering said Midgardian looked seconds from hiding behind Loki and shrieking like a small child.

Despite his obvious panic, he stood and turned to continue his pell-mell dash. He managed to make it about halfway down the block before a brown blur knocked him straight to the ground again, screeching madly.

The two skidded to a stop in front of a decrepit tea shop, a grungy homeless-looking person only a little bit bigger than Janie doing their best to pin down the Midgardian and strangle the life out of him. "How _dare_ you try to trick me! _How dare you_."

Sounding impressively smooth for a man pinned to a sidewalk and slap-fighting with a maniac, Janie said, " _Ratty_ , buddy, it was nothing personal. You can't blame me for trying."

"I can and I will!" Ratty tangled their hands in Janie's oversized hoodie and shook him violently. "Did you think I was too stupid to realize what you pulled?"

Janie huffed and tried unsuccessfully to wrestle himself out of their ironclad grip. "To be fair, I let _you_ choose the ones you wanted. So really it's your fault for not being able to - _gack_ \- to tell the differ _ence_. _Ow_."

Silent as a shadow, Loki casually approached the two of them. Over Ratty's shoulder, Loki looked Janie dead in the eye and raised a questioning eyebrow. He received a scowl and an aborted rude gesture in return.

" _Nine_! You owe me nine, but I've only got seven worth having. Give me my two."

"Come on, those things don't grow on trees!" Janie paused briefly to shoot another glare at Loki, which gave Ratty the perfect opportunity to plant their knee directly on one of his hands. "Well, they do. But I'm out! No more until next year, what say I give you an IOU and we call it good?"

" _No_ , that's not the deal. Give me back what I told you until you pay up." Having caught one hand already, Ratty easily grabbed Janie's other one and slammed it down with surprising strength. Janie's gaze flickered toward Loki, who helpfully waved and mouthed 'four favors', then stubbornly back toward his captor.

"Sure, sure. Give me a second." He made a show of scrunching his eyes closed in concentration, then cracked a grin. "There! All forgotten, now _get off_."

That couldn't possibly work. Could it?

"Good. Don't do it again."

Apparently it could. Loki's estimation of Ratty's intelligence dipped drastically.

Just as they were about to stand something seemed to occur to Ratty. "Wait! Nobody here can just forget on command."

"Well, I can." Janie swallowed a grimace as Ratty planted their unoccupied knee right in the middle of his chest and _leaned_. "Swear it."

"You _liar_!"

"No, no liars here. Would I _really_ lie to you right after you chased me down across half the city for cheating in the first place?"

"Yes."

Well they had him there, didn't they? Janie shot a fine-get-on-with-it sort of look at Loki, who considered his options and held up _five_ fingers. The Midgardian gave him a dirty look and returned his attention to Ratty, who was rearing back to rake surprisingly sharp nails across his face.

"Wait, _wait_! I'm the only one who knows where those things are, so no more special acorns for you if you do that. Good luck finding Agmundr by yourself."

Ratty hesitated, clearly thinking hard about the issue. Loki suspected their brain was about the size of one of those coveted acorns. Suddenly, Ratty grinned in an extremely malicious and bucktoothed manner. "I know what I'll do. You owe me two acorns, but you have two eyes too. I'll just take those instead, and then you'll still be able to bring me more next year! Problem solved."

"Problem _not_ solved, hold on. Hold it!" Janie went stock-still as Ratty began tracing underneath one of his eyes with a long, jagged nail. "One of my eyeballs is worth at least _five_ of those things."

"If I eat one, will it give me all the best ideas?"

"It _might_ , I've never tried." The Midgardian's gaze returned reluctantly to Loki, who, deciding there was no way Janie was going to be able to salvage anything at this point, held up seven fingers and smirked. Janie winced. "Think of this as an intervention. You don't need questionably magic acorns to be brilliant, that's just who you are! Let your true self shine through, Ratty, don't depend on artificial wisdom."

Ratty, bless them, seemed past the point of listening. After a moment of consideration they descended upon Janie's face. Right before the frankly unsanitary-looking nail made contact, Janie engaged what little intellect he had and decided to cut his losses. "Alright, seven!"

In the blink of an eye, Ratty was threatening an empty patch of sidewalk. "I hate you," hissed Janie from his new position next to Loki. "I hate you, I hate you, I _hate_ you."

"Not so fun when _I_ have the upper hand, is it?" Loki received another _I hate you_ and grinned.

The raggedy person whose gender Loki _still_ hadn't figured out sprung to their feet. "Give him back! I need to-"

"To rip out his eyes, yes. I did hear that. Unfortunately, he is also working for _me_ and I need him with his eyes in for the foreseeable future." Loki smoothed his grin out to something more friendly and understanding. "I'm sure we can work something out."

"I shoulda just let them get torn out."

"Nothing! Nothing can replace them. I need my acorns. _Need them_." Ratty jittered in place, eyes glinting manically. "Unless _you_ have some."

"I may. Could I see one to be sure?" After being side-eyed furiously, Ratty fished around in their tattered clothes and withdrew one from somewhere indeterminate. Loki found himself in possession of something that could _never_ be mistaken for an acorn except, possibly, by its shape. He could see how that would be misleading. "I see. I do have some of these I could give you. Two, was it?"

" _I'm the God of Lies, and I rip off interdimensional hellbeasts for fun. Look how cool I am._ I'm gonna laugh when your face gets ripped off."

"Two! No more, no less." Ratty danced in place while Loki turned, making a show of rooting around in his pockets, and snatched two extra acorns from Janie. With a little bit of effort he extracted the strange, buzzing energy from the original 'acorn' and distributed it evenly between the three before handing them back. It left a lemony taste in his mouth.

Ratty wasted no time in eating one of the fakes and went straight into rapture. Janie made a disdainful noise at the sight, but otherwise restrained himself. "Good, we're even. Next time, Janie!"

And with that, the little lunatic ran off.

"Do you make it a habit of harassing unbalanced individuals, or are you just extremely unlucky?" Loki briefly considered whether or not he counted as one of those 'unbalanced individuals', then decided not to care.

Janie dumped his bag back out onto the sidewalk, watching the contents scatter in lieu of answering. Eventually, he grumbled,"I hope someone trips on one of these things and dies. In fact, I hope that someone is _you_."

Obviously, this was the start of a beautiful partnership.

((()))

AN: ...Hi there. As you can see, I'm still alive, and still unbearably glacial in everything I do. Yay. I'm going to try and get another chapter up next week, but past experience warns me to not make promises here. I'm faffing off to places without ready internet and free time for a year and a half at the end of July, so my goal is to get _something_ important and plot-significant to happen before then. We'll see, I guess. Thanks for reading!


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